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FREEMAN'S HISTORICAL COURSE FOR SCHOOLS. 



HISTORY 



OF 



ENGLAND 



EDITH THOMPSON 

EDITED BY 

Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L. 

Edition adapted forAmerica?i Students.^ 







NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

i873 



TJ 



^4 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by 

Henry Holt. 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



> 



PREFACE. 



The appearance of the first of the series of small 
histories to be published under my editorship seems 
to call for a few words from me. The present History 
of England takes for granted the views and divisions 
laid down in my Outlines of History so far as they 
concern the particular history of England. The points 
in English history which were there touched on as parts 
of general history, with special regard to their bearings 
on the history of other countries, are here dealt with 
more fully, as a consecutive narrative of the history of 
the particular nation and country of England. It will 
perhaps be found to be more compressed than some 
other volumes of the series ; as the history of England 
naturally appealed to a wider circle than most others, 
it was thought right to keep the book within as small a 
compass as might be. 

The book is strictly the work of its author. I have 
throughout given it such a degree of supervision as to 
secure its general accuracy ; but with regard to the 



PREFACE. 



details of the narrative, both as to their choice and their 
treatment, they are the author's own ; on these points I 
have not thought it right to go beyond suggestion. It 
may perhaps be hard for me to speak impartially of a 
book to whose general merit I am pledged by its mere 
appearance ; but I can honestly say that it is the result 
of genuine work among the last and best lights on the 
subject. I believe it to be thoroughly trustworthy, and 
that it will give clearer and truer views on most of the 
points on which clear and true views are specially needed 
than can be found in any other book on the same small 
scale. 

EDWARD A. FREEMAN. 



SOMERLEAZE, WELLS, 

March %th, 1873. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAP PAGB 

I.— BRITAIN I 

II.— ENGLAND 4 

III. — THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND 8 

IV. — WESSEX IO 

V.— FROM jfcTHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS . . l6 

VI. — THE DANISH KINGS 21 

VII. — FROM EDWARD TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST . . 2$ 

VIII. — THE OLD ENGLISH AND NORMANS 26 

IX.— WILLIAM 1 35 

X. — WILLIAM II. 39 

XL — HENRY 1 42 

XII. — STEPHEN 46 

XIII. — HENRY II 48 

XIV. — RICHARD 1 53 

XV.— JOHN "56 

XVI.— HENRY III 60 

XVII. — EDWARD I .... 66 

XVIII. — EDWARD II 71 

XIX. — EDWARD III. 75 

XX. — RICHARD II 8l 

XXL— HENRY IV 88 

XXII. — HENRY V 92 

XXIII. —HENRY VI 96 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

XXIV. — EDWARD IV IOO 

XXV. — EDWARD V IO4 

XXVI. — RICHARD III I06 

XXVII.— HENRY VII. Ill 

XXVIII. — HENRY VIII II4 

XXIX. — EDWARD VI 122 

XXX.— MARY 127 

XXXI. — ELIZABETH 131 

XXXII.— JAMES I I4O 

XXXIII. — CHARLES 1 149 

XXXIV.— THE COMMONWEALTH 1 58 

XXXV. — CHARLES II 1 66 

XXXVI.— JAMES II 174 

XXXVII. — WILLIAM AND MARY : WILLIAM III 184 

XXXVIII.— ANNE 191 

XXXIX. — GEORGE 1 195 

XL. — GEORGE II. \ 199 

XLI.— GEORGE III. . . * 2IO 

XLII. — GEORGE IV 229 

XLIII. — WILLIAM IV 232 

XLIV.— VICTORIA ■. 236 

INDEX 243 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

Caesar lands in Britain 55,54 

A.D. 

Claudius in Britain 43 

Caradoc subdued 50 

Revolt of Boadicea 61 

Agricola in Britain . . . . 78 — 84 

Hadrian in Britain . 120 

Severus dies at York 211 

Martyrdom of St. Alban 304 

The Roman legions leave Britain 410 

English Conquest : — Hengist founds the Kingdom of Kent 449 

JElle and Cissa found the Kingdom of Sussex .... 477 

Cerdic and Cynric found the Kingdom of Wessex ... 495 

Arthur defeats the West-Saxons at Badbury 520 

Ida founds the Kingdom of Northumberland 527 

iEthelbert converted by Augustine 597 

Edwin converted by Paulinus 627 

Ine King of the West-Saxons 688 

Offa King of the Mercians 757 

First landing of the Danes 789 

Egbert King of the West-Saxons 802 

^thelwulf - 838 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

.ffithelbald 858 

^Ethelbert 860 

iEthelred 1 866 

The Danes land in East-Anglia 866 

Alfred 871 

Peace of Wedmore 878 

Edward the Elder 901 

Edward becomes Lord of all Britain 924 

^Ethelstan 925 

Battle of Brunanburh 937 

Edmund the Magnificent 940 

Edmund grants Cumberland to Malcolm of Scotland . . 945 

Edred 946 

Edwy 955 

Edgar 959 

Edgar crowned at Bath 973 

Edward the Martyr 975 

^thelred II 979 

The Danish invasions begin again 980 

Danegeld first paid ■ 991 

The Danish Conquest :— Swegen acknowledged King . 1013 

-ffithelred restored 1014 

Edmund Ironside 1016 

War between Edmund and Cnut ; the Kingdom divided . 1016 

The Danish Kings. Cnut chosen King of all England . 1017 

Harold and Harthacnut ; the Kingdom again divided . . 1035 

Harold King of all England 1037 

Harthacnut 1040 

House of Cerdic restored. Edward the Confessor . 1042 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

Westminster consecrated 1065 

House of Podwin :— Harold II 1066 

Battle of Stamfordbridge, Sept. 25th 1066 

The Norman Conquest ; Battle of Hastings, Oct. 14th . 1066 
The Norman Kings : — William I. crowned, Dec. 25th . 1066 

Harrying of Northumberland 1069 

Defence of the Isle of Ely 1071 

Domesday drawn up 1085, 1086 

William II 1087 

Malcolm III. of Scotland slain at Alnwick 1093 

Henry I.; Charter of Liberties 1100 

Battle of Tinchebrai 1106 

Stephen 1135 

Battle of the Standard, Aug. 22nd 1138 

War of Stephen and Matilda 1139-1153 

House of Anjou : — Henry II 1154 

Constitutions of Clarendon 1164 

Murder of Archbishop Thomas 1170 

Conquest of Ireland begins 1171 

Richard 1 1189 

Richard seized by Leopold Duke of Austria 1192 

John 1199 

John becomes a vassal of Rome 1213 

The Great Charter granted, June 15th 1215 

Henry III 1216 

Charter of the Forest 1217 

The Barons' War ; Battle of Lewes, May 14th 1264 

Earl Simon's Parliament 1265 

Battle of Evesham, Aug. 4th 1265 



CHRONOLOGICAL. TABLE. 



A.D. 

Edward 1 1272 

Conquest of Wales . . 1233 

The Jews expelled from England 1290 

Conquest of Scotland 1296 

The Confirmation of the Charters 1297 

Edward II 1307 

Battle of Bannockburn, June 24th 1314 

Battle of Athenree, Aug. 10th 1316 

Edward II. deposed ; Edward III. becomes King . . . 1327 
The late King Edward II. murdered, Sept. 2 1 st .... 1327 

Hundred Years' War begins 1338 

Battle of Crecy, Aug. 26th 1346 

Surrender of Calais 1347 

Battle of Poitiers, Sept. 19th 1356 

Peace of Bretigny, May 8th 1360 

The Black Prince dies 1376 

Richard II 1377 

The Peasant Insurrection 1381 

John Wycliffe dies 1384 

Richard II. deposed ; House of Lancaster ; Henry IV. 

becomes King 1399 

William Sautree burned 1401 

Battle of Shrewsbury, July 23rd 1403 

Henry V 1413 

Hundred Years' War renewed 1415 

Battle of Azincourt, Oct. 25th 1415 

Treaty of Troy es, May 2 1st 1420 

Henry VI 1422 

Jack Cade's insurrection 1450 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

Wars of York and Lancaster ; first battle of St. Albans . .1455 

Battle of Wakefield, Dec. 31st 1460 

House of York : — Edward IV 1461 

Battle of Tewkesbury, May 4th 1471 

Edward V.; Richard III 1483 

Battle of Bosworth, Aug. 22nd 1485 

The Tudors :— Henry VII 1485 

Perkin Warbeck hanged 1499 

Henry VIII 1509 

Battle of Flodden, Sept. 9th 1513 

Marriage of Henry with Katharine of Aragon declared null 

and void 1533 

The Papal power in England set aside 1534 

Wales incorporated with England ; dissolution of the lesser 

monasteries; Anne Boleyn beheaded 1536 

The greater monasteries dissolved ; Act of the Six Articles . 1539 

Ireland raised to the rank of a Kingdom ....... 1542 

Edward VI 1547 

Battle of Pinkie, Sept. 10th 1547 

Mary 1553 

Wyait's insurrection; Jane Grey beheaded; reconciliation 

with Rome 1554 

Ridley and Latimer burned 1555 

Calais taken by the French 1558 

Elizabeth 1558 

Act of Supremacy ■ 1559 

Mary of Scotland beheaded 1587 

The Spanish Armada defeated 1588 

Charter granted to the East India Company 1600 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

House of Stuart : — James 1 1603 

The Gunpowder Plot discovered, Nov. 5th 1605 

Translation of the Bible finished 1611 

Charles 1 1625 

Petition of Right, June 7th 1628 

The Long Parliament meets, Nov. 3rd 1640 

Irish Rebellion 1641 

The Civil Wars ; Charles sets up his standard at Nottingham, 

Aug. 22nd 1642 

Battle of Naseby, June 14th 1645 

Second Civil War; battle of Preston, Aug. 17th .... 1648 

Charles I. beheaded, Jan. 30th 1649 

The Commonwealth 1649 

Oliver Cromwell in Ireland 1649 

Battle of Dunbar, Sept. 3rd 1650 

Battle of Worcester, Sept. 3rd 1651 

War with Hohand 1652 

Cromwell turns out the Parliament, April 20th 1653 

The Protectorate; Oliver Cromwell, Dec. 1 6th .... 1653 

Jamaica taken 1655 

Richard Cromwell 1658 

The Long Parliament reassembles 1659 

The Convention meets; Restoration of King Charles II. . 1660 

The Plague Year 1665 

The Great Fire of London 1666 

The Dutch burn the ships at Chatham 1667 

Habeas Corpus Act 1679 

James II 1685 

Battle of Sedgemoor, July 6th 1685 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

Trial of the Seven Bishops, June 1688 

Landing of the Prince of Orange, Nov. 5th 1688 

Flight of James from Whitehall, Dec. nth 1688 

Declaration of Right ; the Convention bestows the crown 

upon William and Mary, Feb. 13th 1689 

Bill of Rights 1Q89 

Battle of the Boyne, July 1st 1690 

Surrender of Limerick, Oct. 3rd 1691 

National Debt begins 1693 

Bank of England founded ; death of Mary ; William III. 1694 

Act of Settlement 1701 

Anne 170 2 

Battle of Blenheim ; Gibraltar taken 1704: 

Union with Scotland, May 1st 1707 

Peace of Utrecht 1713 

House of Hanover : — George 1 1714 

Jacobite Rebellion 1715 

George II 1727 

Battle of Dettingen 1743 

Jacobite Rebellion 1745 

Battle of Culloden, April 1 6th 174Q 

Battle of Plassy, June 23rd 1757 

Canada won 1760 

George III I75O 

The North American colonies declare their independence, 

J ul y 4th 1776 

Battle of the Nile, Aug. 1st 1798 

Union with Ireland, Jan. 1st 1801 

Battle of Trafalgar, Oct. 2 1 st 1805 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

The Peninsular War 1808-1814 

The Regency 1811 

Battle of Waterloo, June 1 8th 1815 

George IV 1820 

Catholic Emancipation Act, April 13th 1829 

William IV 1830 

Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened ...... 1830 

The Reform Bill, June 7th 1832 

Abolition of Slavery, Aug. 28th 1833 

Victoria 1837 

Abandonment of the protective duties upon corn .... 1846 

Battle of the Alma, Sept. 20th 1854: 

Indian Mutiny .' 1857 

Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick formed into one 

Dominion under the name of Canada 1867 

The Reform Bill, Aug. 15th 1867 

The Irish Church disestablished 1869 

Ballot Bill 1872 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

BRITAIN. 

The Britons ; Ireland and Scotland (i) — the Roman conquest; 
invasion of Julius Ccesar ; description of the Britons (2) — 
Claudius ; Caractacus (3) — destruction of the Druids ; Queen 
Boadicea (4) — Agricola (5) — Hadrian and Severus (6) — the 
British Church; St. Alban (7). 

1. The British Isles. — Englci7id has its name from the 
Angles or English, of whom we shall not speak till our next 
chapter, as they were not the first owners of the land. They 
found already dwelling in it a Celtic race, the Britons, who 
are the earliest inhabitants of whom we have any historic 
knowledge, and who still exist as a people under the name 
of Welsh. These are supposed < to have conquered, and 
rooted out from the country, a savage race, remains of whose 
weapons and tools have been found in their tombs or crom- 
lechs. The Island of I erne, Scotia, or Ireland was inhabited 
by another Celtic people, the Scots, who afterwards colonized 
or conquered a district of Caledonia or North Britain, which 
thus came to be called from them Scotia or Scotland. 

2. The Roman Conquest, Julius Caesar. — At the time 
when our knowledge of the Britons begins, the Romans were 
the most powerful nation of the world ; and it was their 

T B 



BRITAIN. [chap. 



great general, Cains Julius Ccssar, who first attempted to 
conquer Britain, hitherto only known to those merchants 
who traded with the tribes on the sea-coast. Cassar first 
passed over into Britain in Aug. 55 B.C., landing at Deal. 
The next year he came again, but neither time did he make 
any lasting conquest, or leave any troops behind him. He 
only saw the southern part of the island, and gives to the 
Kentish people the praise of being the most civilized of the 
Britons. The population was large, the buildings and cattle 
numerous. The Britons stained themselves blue with woad, 
which gave them a terrible appearance in battle. They em- 
ployed both cavalry and chariots, and were remarkable for 
their skill in driving, and the activity with which they leapt 
down to fight on foot and sprang back again to their cars. 
Their priests were called Druids, and human sacrifices were 
offered to their gods. After Caesar's two expeditions, Britain 
became much better known to the rest of the world. At 
the beginning of the Christian sera, its exports are said to 
have comprised corn and cattle, gold and' silver, tin, lead, 
and iron, skins, slaves, and hunting dogs. Pearls were also 
found, but of a poor kind. 

3. Claudius.— In the time of the Emperor Claudius, who 
himself came over here in a.d. 43, the Romans really 
began to conquer Britain. One who struggled the hardest 
against the invaders was Carddoc, called by the Romans 
Caractacus, King of a tribe dwelling by the Severn ; but he 
was at last taken and sent prisoner to Rome. "When he 
saw the stately streets, he expressed his wonder that men 
who had such wealth at home should covet his poor cottage 
in Britain ; and the Emperor, struck with his bold bearing, 
instead of putting him to death, the usual fate of a captive, 
gave him his freedom. 

4. Boadicea. — In A.D. 61 Suetonius Pauliuus, the Roman 
governor, being determined to root out the Druids, attacked 



L] THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. 3 

their sacred isle of Mono, (now Anglesey). A strong force 
of Britons defended the shore ; the Druids stood around, 
calling down the wrath of heaven upon the invaders ; women 
with streaming hair and torches in their hands rushed wildly 
to and fro. For a moment the Romans quailed with super- 
stitious terror ; but, recalling their courage, they advanced, 
and warriors, Druids, priestesses, were overwhelmed, the 
altars destroyed, and the sacred groves cut down. Mean- 
while the subject Britons broke out into revolt under the 
leadership of Buddug or Boadicea, widow of a King of the 
Icoiians, a tribe dwelling in what are now Norfolk and 
Suffolk. Boadicea, having offended the Roman officer com- 
manding at Camulodunum (Colchester^, had by his orders 
been publicly scourged, and her two daughters had been 
subjected to brutal outrage. Breathing vengeance, the high- 
spirited Queen gathered together her own and the neigh- 
bouring tribes, stirred them by a fiery speech, and herself 
led them to battle. They massacred the garrisons and burnt 
the Roman towns of Londinium (London), Ventlamiiim (St. 
Albans), and Camitlodunumj but, on the return of Suetonius, 
they were defeated with great slaughter near Londinium. 
Boadicea died soon after — a natural death, as some say ; 
according to others, she poisoned herself in despair. 

5. Agricola. — The true conqueror of Britain was Cnccus 
Julius Agricola, a wise and good man, who was its go- 
vernor from a.d. 78 to 84. He built a line of forts between the 
Firths of Forth and Clyde to keep off the wild North-Britons 
whom he could not subdue, sailed round the north of the 
island, and found out the Orkneys. He ruled with justice, 
checked the extortions of the Roman tax-gatherers, and 
encouraged the natives to build temples, courts of justice, 
and good dwelling-houses. Towns were raised throughout 
the land, and excellent roads made, some of which remain 
at this day. Many Romans settled in Britain, of whose 
B 2 



ENGLAND. [chap. 



villas, or country-houses, traces are here and there still to 
be seen ; while the native chieftains learned to speak Latin, 
and affected the dress and manners of their conquerors. 

6. Hadrian and Severus. — In 120 the Emperor Hadrian 
visited Britain, and, not being able to keep all the land 
won by Agricola, raised an earthwork from the Tyne to the 
Solway Frith. A fresh dyke, however, was built along Agri- 
cola's line under the Emperor Antoninus Pius in 139. Still 
the Caledonians gave trouble, until between 207 and 210 
the Emperor Severus came in person to put them down, and 
built a chain of stone forts along the line of Hadrian's dyke. 
Severus died in 21 1 at Eboracum, now called York. 

7. The British Church. — At what time Britain became 
Christian is not known. Its first martyr is said to have been 
St. Aldan, who was put to death in 304 near Verulam ; the 
spot where he was martyred being afterwards marked by 
the abbey and town bearing his name. 



CHAPTER II. 

ENGLAND. 

Decline of the Roman power ; the Picts and Scots ; the Teutonic 
tribes; the Roman Wall ; recall of the Roman troops.; the 
English conquest ; the Welsh (i) — kingdom of Kent ; legend of 
Hengest and ITorsa ; kingdom of Wessex ; Arthur ; kingdom of 
Noi-tJmmberland ; of the Mercians ; of Sussex, Essex, and 
East Anglia ; the Bretwalda (2) — Religion (3) — Government ; 
the King; earl, churl, thane, and thrall ; the Witan ; mark, 
hundred, and shire (4). 

I. The English Conquest. — In the fourth century, when 
the power of Rome was going down, the free Celts of the 
north, the Picts and Scots, began to pour into the Roman 



ii.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 5 

province of Britain, while new enemies attacked the island 
by sea. These latter were Teutonic tribes, speaking dialects 
of the Low-Dutch or Low-German tongue, who came from 
the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser in North-Germany. 
About the year 400 the Romans joined the forts of Severus 
by a wall, parts of which are still to be seen ; and ten 
years later, the Emperor Honoruis withdrew all his troops 
from Britain, and left the natives to resist their many ene- 
mies as they best might. The greater part of the country 
was now conquered by these Teutons, the founders of the 
English nation, among whom three tribes stand out above 
the rest, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These grew into 
one people under the name of Anglo-Saxons, or more 
commonly of Angles or English; and the part of Britain 
they dwelt in was called England. They were fierce hea- 
then, who slew or enslaved those whom they overcame, 
and drove the rest into the western part of the island. They 
spoke of the Britons as Welsh, that is, strangers ; while 
the Britons called them all Saxons, as the descendants of 
the Celts in Wales (which has its name from the Welsh), in 
Ireland, and the Highlands do to this day. 

2. The English Kingdoms. — According to ancient tradi- 
tion, the first Teutonic Kingdom in this island was that of 
Kent, which has always kept its British name. Gwrtheyrn 
or Vo7'tigem, a. native prince, was ill-advised enough to 
invite two Jutish chiefs, the brothers Hengest and Horsa, to 
help him against the Picts. The strangers came over with 
their followers in three keels or ships, defeated the Picts, and 
then, thinking they might as well conquer for themselves, sent 
over for their countrymen in North-Germany, telling them 
how good the land was, and how weak were its people. 
The Britons, nevertheless, had a long struggle with them ; 
but the Jutish adventurers at last got the better, founding in 
449 the Kingdoms of East and West Kent. The Kingdo?H 



ENGLAND. [chap. 



of the West-Saxons, or Wessex, was founded by two Saxon 
chiefs, Cerdic and his son Cynric, who, landing in 495, made 
themselves Kings of the part now called Hampshire. A 
British prince, Arthur by name, who has become more 
famous by the romances and poems about him than for his 
real exploits, in 520 defeated the Saxons at Badbury in Dorset- 
shire, and thus checked their western conquests for a whole 
generation ; but later on, they pushed their way, and their 
kingdom grew larger and larger. In 547 Ida the Angle 
founded the Kingdom of the Northumbrians— the land from 
the Humber to the Firth of Forth, ruled sometimes by one 
King, sometimes by two. The Kingdom of the Mercians, 
which was mainly Anglian, took in the midland country. 
The Kingdoms of the South-Saxons, or Sussex ; of the 
East-Saxons, or Essex; and of the East- Angles, which was 
divided into the North-folk and South-folk {Norfolk and 
Suffolk), were less powerful. , These seven chief kingdoms 
are sometimes spoken of by modern authors as the Hept- 
archy, that is, the Rule of Seven ; but the name is mis- 
leading, as there were at no time seven regular and 
orderly states. They were for ever fighting, not only with 
the Welsh, but among each other, and their number was 
sometimes more and sometimes fewer. At times, some one 
King gained a certain authority over his fellows, in which 
case he was termed a Bretwalda, or " Wielder of Britain." 

3. Religion. — The faith of the English was much the same 
as that of the other Teutonic tribes — heathenism, though not 
of a degraded form. Woden, called by the Danes Odin, was 
their chief god, the giver of valour and victory ; after him 
came Thunder, better known by his Danish name of Thar, 
the ruler of the sky ; and many other gods and goddesses. 
The names of the days of the week, as Wednesday or 
Woden's day, Thursday or Thunder's day, still preserve the 
memory of some of these deities. 



II. ] GO VERNMENT. 



4. Government. — The English royal houses all claimed 
descent from the God Woden ; but, though the King was 
taken from the kingly line, he was nevertheless elected ; and 
a child or a man thought incompetent would be passed over 
in favour of a kinsman better fitted for the office. Part 
of the land belonged to the State, and part was allotted to 
individuals, the King having his private estates like other 
people. But as he could, with the consent of his council, 
make grants of the public land, it came in time to be looked 
on as the property of the Crown. All landholders were 
under three obligations, — to serve in the fyrd, or militia, 
and to repair fortresses and bridges. Freemen were divided 
into Earls and Churls, terms best expressed in modern 
language by the words " gentle " and " simple ; " and the 
churl was expected to live under some lord, whom he fol- 
lowed to battle. Every King or other great man had his 
own thegns (now spelt "thane"), warriors who devoted them- 
selves to his service in peace and war. As it was held an 
honour to serve a King, the thanes grew into gentlemen 
and nobles. There were also the thralls or slaves, who 
were most numerous along the Welsh border, where many 
Welshmen were taken prisoners and made bondsmen. But 
men might become slaves in other ways than being cap- 
tured in war. They might be driven by poverty to sell them- 
selves, or be enslaved by law as punishment for some crime ; 
or they might be born in slavery. 

The King was not absolute (that is, he did not govern by 
himself), but was guided by a kind of Parliament, called the 
Witena-gemot, or Meeting of the Wise, and often simply the 
Witan or Wise Men. All freemen might take part in the 
Meeting ; but as the Kingdoms grew larger the mass of 
the people soon found it impracticable to do so ; — for ex- 
ample, a common man at York was not likely to attend a 
Meeting at Winchester or London. So the Meeting shrank 



CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. [chap. 



on ordinary occasions into something more like our House 
of Lords, attended only by the great men — the Ealdormen, 
who were much like Lords-Lieutenant of counties ; the 
King's thanes; and, after the country became Christian, 
by the Bishops and Abbots.' We often hear, however, of the 
Londoners taking part in Meetings held in that city. The 
powers of the Witan were large : they elected the King ; 
and they and he together made laws and treaties, and ap- 
pointed tor removed the officers of the State. The people, 
however, in small matters governed themselves. The mark 
or township had its own little court and meeting, still con- 
tinued in part under the name of " parish vestry," for judg- 
ing and settling its affairs : and so had the hundred, a 
division of the shire or county. So too the shire had its 
court and meeting, presided over by the Ealdorman and the 
Sheriff, with whom, in Christian times, was joined the 
Bishop. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 

K*me ; the conversion of Kent (i) — the conversion of the Northum- 
brians ; the Scots missionaries (2). 

I. Conversion of Kent. — The heathen English had learned 
nothing from the Christian Welsh, and their conversion 
was owing in the first instance to Rome, which was still 
considered the greatest city of the Western world, and 
whose Bishop, commonly called Pope, that is, Father, was 
held to be chief of all Bishops in the West. Gregory 
the Great, who was made Pope in 590, is said to have 
become interested in the English from seeing some beautiful 
long-haired boys from Deira (Yorkshire), standing for sale 



in.] CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 9 

in the slave-market at Rome. Well were they called 
Angles, he said, for they had the faces of angels j and 
sorrowing that forms so fair should have no light within, 
he at once conceived a wish for the conversion of England. 
So after he had become Pope, he, in 597, sent into Britain 
a band of monks having at their head Augustine, after- 
wards styled Saint. sEthelbert King of Kent, who was the 
most powerful prince in Southern England, had married 
Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Frankish kings 
in Gaul. Though himself a heathen, he had agreed to 
allow his wife, as being a Christian, free exercise of her 
religion, and he now consented to listen to Augustine and 
his companions. The meeting took place in the Isle of 
Thanet, and, by y^Ethelbert's wish, in the open air, because 
spells and charms, which he feared the strangers might use, 
were supposed to have less power out of doors. After 
hearing what they had to say, he gave them a house in the 
royal city of Canterbury. Ere long they converted y£thel- 
bert, whose example was freely followed by many. Augus- 
tine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and his 
cathedral, although it has been many times rebuilt, still re- 
mains the metropolitan or mother church of England. He 
consecrated a Bishop of London, for whom King .rEthelber-t 
built the church of St. Paul. The Church services, intro- 
duced untranslated by the missionaries, were in Latin, which, 
though an unknown tongue in England, was still understood 
in other parts of Western Christendom. 

2. The Conversion of the Northumbrians. — Eadwine, or 
as we now write his name, Edwin, of Deira, mounted the 
Northumbrian throne in 617, and became the greatest King 
in Britain. His wife yEthelburh, daughter of /Ethelbert of 
Kent, was a Christian ; and to the Bishop Paulinus, whom 
she brought with her, the conversion of her husband was 
due. York Minster, at first a simple wooden church, was 



io W ESSEX. [chap. 

founded by Edwin, who was there baptized. But after he 
had fallen fighting against the heathen Penda King of the 
Mercians, many of his people returned to the old gods. 
The work of conversion began again under Oswald, who 
became King in 634. Having been baptized by the Scots of 
Caledonia, he applied to them for teachers for his people. 
Aidan, a monk from the monastery of Iona, was sent on this 
request, and fixed his episcopal see in Lindisfame, since 
called Holy Island. Through his own and his countrymen's 
labours, most of the Northumbrians soon became Chris- 
tians ; but the faith of the common people in out-of-the-way 
districts was often mixed with heathenism. Cuthbert, a 
Northumbrian monk of Melrose, who was made Bishop of 
Lindisfarne in 685. and was afterwards reverenced as the 
great saint of the North, devoted himself to teaching them, 
and preaching throughout the villages, choosing particularly 
those which were so difficult to get at that other mission- 
aries avoided them. 

The other kingdoms of England were gradually con- 
verted during the seventh century. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WESSEX. 

Northumberland ; Offa of Mercia ; Ine of Wessex ; the Bretwalda 
Egbert (i) — the Danes (2)— St. Patrick ; the Danes in Ireland (3) 
— sEthehvulfand his sous ; Ragnar Lodh-og ; St. Edmund (4) 
— Alfred; story of the cakes ; taking of the Raven; story of 
Alfred in the Danish camp ; treaty of Wedmore ; Danish settle- 
ments (5) — Alfred 's government ; death of Alfred (6) — Edward 
the Elder ; Lordship of Britain (7)-— Rolf the Northman (8). 

I. Rise of Wessex. — For some time Northumberland 
took the lead in England ; then Mercia rose to power under 



iv.] THE DANES OR NORTHMEN. H 

Offa, who reigned from 757 to 796. He raised a dyke, called 
by his name, from the Wye to the Dee, to guard the land he 
had taken from the Welsh. Gradually Wessex, which was 
ruled by the descendants of Cerdic, got the mastery. Ine, 
who became its King in 688, is famous as a lawgiver. He, 
too, waged war with the Welsh, and also built the town of 
Taunton, probably as a frontier fortress. In 802, Ecgberht 
or Egbert succeeded to the throne of Wessex, and brought 
all the English kingdoms under his power. He became King 
by conquest of all the Saxons and Jutes, and Lord of the 
East-Angles, Mercians, and Northumbrians, whose Kings 
consented to be his men or vassals. The Welsh of Cornwall 
and Wales also submitted to him ; but his later years were 
marred by the increasing ravages of the Northern pirates. 

2. The Danes or Northmen. — The Scandinavians, or 
Northmen, were a Teutonic people, who gradually formed 
the Kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. As those 
of them who entered England were chiefly Danes, the 
English writers often speak of the Scandinavians in general 
by that name. Among these people, piracy was an honour- 
able profession, and men of the highest rank took to the 
roving life of a " Sea-King ; " that is, a leader of wikings or 
pirates. Their practice was to sail up the river in their cescs 
or as/wood galleys, and, obtaining horses in the country, 
make rapid forays over the mainland, plundering, burning, 
and slaying. They spoke a kindred tongue to English, and, 
worshipping the same gods as the heathen English had done, 
singled out with especial delight churches, monasteries, and 
priests for destruction. Nevertheless they for the most part 
made little difficulty about forsaking their own religion 
whenever there was anything to be gained by conversion. 
Never to flinch in fight, or shed a tear, even for their dearest 
kinsfolk, and to be as reckless in meeting as in inflicting 
death, summed up their ideas of honour and duty. 



WESSEX. [chap. 



3. The Da-nes in Ireland. — The Scots of Ireland had been 
converted to Christianity in the fifth century, chiefly, it is said, 
through the exertions of Si. Patrick, a famous missionary 
whose origin and country are matters of doubt. His dis- 
ciples carried on his work : churches and monasteries were 
founded ; learning was cultivated at a time when it had 
almost died out elsewhere, and the Irish schools were sought 
by strangers from England, Gaul, and Germany. Never- 
theless the people made but slow progress towards civiliza- 
tion, and this was checked altogether by invasions of the 
Danes. At last the pirates settled upon the sea-coast, and 
the native Irish, driven into the bogs and the forests, fell 
back into little better than savages. 

4. The Danish Wars. /Ethelwulf and his Sons. — Egbert 
was succeeded in 838 by his son ALthelwulf, and he by his 
four sons, jElhelbald, ALthelbcrt, ALthelred I., and sElfred 
(or, as we now write it, Alfred), who all reigned one after the 
other, none of the first three living long. Under ^Ethelred 
began the great Danish war, as to the cause of which there are 
many Northern legends. One tale is that Ragnar Eodbrogj. 
a mighty Sea-King, was shipwrecked on the Northum- 
brian coast. There the King of the country, sElla, threw him 
into a dungeon full of poisonous snakes, under whose bites he 
expired, chanting to the last a wild song recounting his ex- 
ploits, and boasting that "he died laughing." The facts 
are that in 866 " a great heathen army," under the command 
of Ingvar and Ubba, said to be sons of Ragnar, landed in 
East-Anglia, and in the two next years overran Northumber- 
land and Mercia. In S70 they again invaded East-Anglia, 
and put its young King Edmuud to death. Edmund, accord- 
ing to legend, was offered his life and kingdom if he would 
forsake Christianity and reign under them. On his refusal 
they bound him to a tree, scourged him, made him, in savage 
sport, a mark for their arrows, and at last struck off his head. 



IV.] ALFRED. 13 

He was honoured as a martyr, and the Abbey of St. Ed- 
mu?idsbnry was afterwards erected over his grave. 

5. Alfred, 871-901. — Alfred, when a child of four years old, 
had been sent by his father to Rome, where Pope Leo IV. 
adopted him as his godson. At nineteen he married, and it 
is said that during his wedding feast he was seized with fearful 
pain, which baffling all the medical skill of the time, for the 
next twenty years of his life kept frequently attacking him ; 
if so, it is the more wonderful how brave and vigorous he 
was. At the age of twenty-two he became King, and a 
hard fight he had of it. For seven years he maintained 
himself, until early in 878 the army under Guthrum, a 
Danish chief who had possessed himself of East-Anglia, 
made a sudden raid upon Wessex, and overran the country. 
Many of the people fled beyond sea ; the rest submitted, 
while Alfred, with a few followers, disappeared among 
the swamps and woods of Somersetshire. At one time — 
so runs a tale which appears to have come to us from 
a ballad — he stayed in disguise with a neat-herd, who kept 
his secret even from his wife. One day the woman having 
set some cakes to bake at the fire by which Alfred was 
sitting mending his bow and arrows, returned to find her 
cakes burning in the sight of the unconscious King, whose 
mind was full of more serious matters. Flying to save them, 
she roundly scolded him for his neglect to turn the cakes, 
which she said he was only too glad to eat when hot. That 
same winter the Devonshire West-Saxons slew the Danish 
King Ubba in battle, and took the magic Raven banner, 
said to have been woven in one noontide by the three 
daughters of Ragnar. Things now began to mend, Alfred 
and his little band throwing up a small fort in Athelney, 
and thence making frequent sallies. It is said that in order 
to ascertain the strength of the enemy he entered their 
camp in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and there stayed 



i 4 WESSEX. [chap. 

seven days, amusing them and their King Guthrum with his 
music, until he had learnt all he wanted to know. However 
this may be, he reappeared on a sudden at the head of the 
West-Saxon forces, and gave the Danes such a defeat at 
Edingtoti, near Westbury, that they soon yielded to him. 
Guthrum submitted to be baptized ; and the Witan meeting 
at We dm ore, a treaty was made, by which the Danes re- 
ceived, as vassals of the West-Saxon King, East-Anglia, 
and part of Essex and Mercia. The Danes of Northumber- 
land, who were not Guthrum's men, submitted to Alfred 
some years later. So after all Alfred's labour, the greater 
part of England was left in Danish hands, and conse- 
quently the English race became largely infused with 
Scandinavian blood. In this way it comes to pass that 
so many places have Danish names, marked by the ending 
by, which answers to the English ton or town. Thus 
Strconeshalh got the Danish name of Whitby, and North 
weortkig that of Derby. 

6. Alfred's Government. — Alfred worked as hard in peace 
as in war. He made a collection of dooms, that is, laws ; 
some taken from the Mosaic law, others from the old codes 
of uEthelbert, Inc., and Offa, adding but few of his OAvn, 
because he said he did not know how those who came 
after him might like them. He kept up a fleet, and did all 
he could to revive the old seafaring spirit, which seemed to 
have died out. He gave largely to the poor and to churches, 
founded monasteries, and encouraged learned men, English 
and foreign, to instruct his people. Knowing Latin well, he 
translated many books from that language. He sent out 
seamen to the North on voyages of exploration ; also em- 
bassies to the Pope, to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and what 
is still more remarkable, to India, with alms for the Christian 
churches there, which had been founded, it is said, by the 
Apostles St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew. This was the 



IV.] ROLF THE NORTHMAN. 15 

first intercourse between England and the far-off Eastern 
land which now forms part of the British Empire. Alfred 
had other wars with the Danes, but his courage and deter- 
mination carried him through all, and his last years were spent 
in quiet. In 901 he died, and was buried at Winchester, in 
the new Minster, afterwards called Hyde Abbey, which he 
had begun, and which his son Edward finished. 

7. Eadward or Edward the Elder, 901-925. The Lord- 
ship of Britain. — Alfred was succeeded by his eldest son 
Edward, who was as good a soldier, though not so good a 
scholar, as his father. He became more powerful than 
anyone before him, for at his death he was King of the 
English as far as the H umber, and Loi-d of all Britain j 
the Northumbrians, whether English, Danes, or Norwegians, 
the Scots, and the Welsh of Strathclyde or Cumberland, all 
doing him homage. 

8. Rolf the Northman.— One foreign event in Edward's 
time had important consequences for England. There was a 
noted Sea- King, the Northman Rolf, called in French Ron 
and in Latin Rollo, and surnamed, it is said, " Ganger" that 
is, the Goer or Walker, because he was too tall to ride ; for 
when mounted on one of the little horses of his country, his 
feet touched the ground. Rolf spent many years in plun- 
dering, until Charles the Simple, King of the West-Franks, 
bribed him to peace by granting him the land at the mouth 
of the Seine. Rolf turned Christian, and proved a good 
ruler. He was called Duke of the Northmen, or Normans, 
as the word was softened in French, and his land got the 
name of Normandy. 



16 JETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM /ETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS. 

SEthclstan ; Brunanburh ; b?iperial titles (i) — Edmund; grant of 
Strathclyde (2) — Edred ; St. Dunstan (3) — Edzay ; the Monks 
and the Seculars ; ALlfgifu (4) Edgar — tribute of wolves' heads 
(5) — Edward the Martyr (6) — sEthelred the Unready ; Danegeld ; 
invasion of Swegen ; martyrdom of ^Elfheah (j)^the Danish 
conquest; restoration of sEthelrcd (8) — Edmund Ironside ; divi- 
sion of England (9). 

1. /Ethelstan, 925-940. Empire of Britain. — sEthelstan, 
eldest son of Edward, is famous for his victory in 937 at 
Brunanburh, where he and his brother Edmund overthrew 
Anlaf, a Danish King from Ireland, Constantine King of 
Scots, Owen of Cumberland, and all the Scots and Danes 
and Welsh of the north. Of Anlaf there is a tale that he 
played the spy in the English camp, disguised, like Alfred 
before him, as a glecman ; and that ^Ethelstan and his 
nobles gave him money, which Anlaf, too proud to keep, 
buried in the ground. All that is known of the position of 
Brunanburh is that it was north of Humber. yEthelstan 
took Northumberland into his own hands, so that now 
there was but one king in England. He and his successors 
sometimes called themselves Empero?'s of Britain, to show 
that they were lords of the island, and that the Emperors 
of East and West had no pow T er over them. 

2. Eadmund or Edmund the Magnificent (that is, The 
Doer of Great Deeds), 940-946. — Edm-und, a brave warrior 
like his brother, came to a sad end when still a young man, 
being stabbed by Liofa, a banished robber, who, having 
insolently seated himself at the royal board resisted the 



V.] ED RED AND EDWY. 17 

attempts of the King and others to turn him out. Strath- 
clyde was granted by Edmund to Malcolm King of Scots, on 
condition of service in war. 

3. Eadred or Edred, 946-955. — Edmund's sons being 
still children, his brother Edred was chosen King. He took 
for his adviser a wise man, Dunstan, afterwards styled Saint, 
who had been as a youth at the court of King ^Ethelstan, 
but, having turned monk, had given himself up to study, and 
to arts useful for the services of the Church, such as music, 
painting, and metal-work. By King Edmund he had been 
made Abbot of Glastonbury. 

4. Eadwig or Edwy, 955-959. The Monks and the Secu- 
lars. — Edwy, eldest son of Edmund, though still very young, 
was chosen King after Edred's death. The history of this time 
is so coloured by party spirit that it is hard to make out the 
truth. The main subject of dispute was the reformation of the 
Church. The Danish invaders had destroyed many monas- 
teries ; in those which were left discipline had become lax, and 
the monks lived much as they chose. Among the secular clergy 
— that is, those who were not monks, but parsons of parishes 
and canons of cathedral and collegiate churches — there is 
said to have been much ignorance and vice. Moreover, tl\e 
secular clergy were often married, and this was specially hate- 
ful in the eyes of the reforming Bishops, who shared the idea 
which had gradually grown up in the Western Church, that 
the clergy ought not to marry. They accordingly set them- 
selves with great zeal, not only to make the monks live ac- 
cording to their rules, but also to force the married clergy 
to put away their wives. Further, they tried to get all the 
cathedral and other great churches into the hands of monks, 
whom they liked better than secular clergymen, married or 
unmarried. The quarrel ran high, and while Dunstan stood 
at the head of the monks' party, young King Edwy, though 
no enemy to the Church, took the other side. Edwy's mar- 

T C 



i8 sETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. 

riage was another cause of strife. It appears that his wife 
JElfgifu (in Latin Elgivd) was related to him within the 
very numerous degrees then forbidden by the ecclesiastical 
law of marriage, and Dunstan's party therefore refused to 
consider her as the King's wife. Edwy, on his part, seems 
to have behaved unwisely, and in the end he drove Dunstan 
out of the country. Whether it was by this, or by his govern- 
ment in general, the King gave great offence, and in 957 all 
England north of Thames revolted, choosing Edwy's brother 
Edgar -for its King. The next year Archbishop Oda prevailed 
on Edwy to divorce ^Elfgifu. There is a horrible story, which 
happily there seems no good reason for believing, that Oda 
had her branded in the face and banished, and that when she 
ventured to come back his men put her to a cruel death. 
Nothing is really known of her end ; as for Edwy, he died 
in 959. 

5. Eadgar or Edgar, surnamed the Peaceful, 959-975. — 
Edgar King of the Mercians, a youth of sixteen, was now 
chosen by the whole people as their ruler, and his reign 
proved peaceable and prosperous. Like Alfred, he main- 
tained a strong fleet, and thereby kept the country from 
invasion. Dunstan, now Archbishop of Canterbury, was his 
counsellor ; and, though in many churches secular priests 
were turned out to make way for monks, Dunstan was too 
much a statesman to foster the violence of many of his 
party. Edgar's coronation was put off until he had reigned 
thirteen years. It took place at Bath in 973, after which he 
sailed with his fleet to Chester, where some six or eight of 
his vassal Kings with their fleets came to do him homage, 
— the ceremony by which one man declared himself vassal 
of another. There is a tradition that Edgar exacted of Idwal, 
a rebellious North-Welsh prince, a tribute of three hundred 
wolves' heads yearly, and that this he paid for three years, 
but omitted in the fourth, declaring that he could find no 



v.] EDWARD AND MTHELRED II 19 

more. Edgar left by different wives, two sons, Edward and 
JEthelred, one about twelve and the other about six years old. 
6. Eadwardor Edward, surnamed the Martyr, 975-979. — 
There was much disorder after Edgar's death, for the parties 
of the monks and the seculars at once began to quarrel 
again. Besides this, they disputed as to which of Edgar's 
sons should be King ; but finally the elder, Edward, was 
elected. After a reign of less than four years, the young 
King was murdered at Corfes Gate (Corfe Castle). He was 
called "the Martyr," a name which the English then readily 
gave to any good man unjustly slain. The story goes that 
young Edward, returning tired and thirsty from hunting, 
stopped at the door of his stepmother, sElfthryth (in Latin 
Elfridd). She came out to welcome him ; but while he 
was eagerly draining the cup presented to him he was 
stabbed by one of her attendants. He at once put spurs 
to his horse and galloped off, but sinking from the saddle 
his foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged along 
till he died. It is added that the child yEthelred, for whose 
sake the murder had been committed, on hearing of his 
brother's death burst into tears, at which his mother 
./Elfthryth in passion beat him so unmercifully that his 
life was endangered. 

7. jEthelred II., surnamed the Unready, 979-1016. — ■ 
AZthelred was only ten years old when raised to the throne, 
and he had not been two years crowned when the Danes 
renewed their invasions. After Dunstan's death in 988, the 
young King gave himself up to unworthy favourites., and 
everything went to rack- and ruin. Weak, cowardly, cruel, 
he was always either leaving things undone, or doing them 
at the wrong time ; whence he has been called " the Un- 
ready," that is, the Uncounselled, probably by a play on his 
name sEthel-red, which means Noble-in-connsel. After a 
while, he and his advisers took the course of buying off the 
C 2 



20 sETHELSTAN TO THE DANISH KINGS, [chap. 

invaders with large sums of money, the taxes levied for the 
purpose being called Danegeld. Nothing could have suited 
the pirates better, and again and again they came to slay 
and plunder, sure of being paid in the end. In 994 the 
King of the Danes, Swend or Swegen " Forkbeard" who 
had been baptized as a child, but had returned to heathenism, 
invaded the country, and proved a terrible foe. In ion 
the Danes under one Earl Thurkill took Canterbury, carry- 
ing away a vast number of captives for ransom or slavery, 
among whom was the Archbishop JElfheah. He first 
agreed to ransom himself, but afterwards refused, not wish- 
ing to impoverish his people, by whom the money would 
have to be paid. In a fit of drunken fury the Danish 
warriors pelted him to death with stones and ox-bones, in 
spite of the remonstrances of their leader Thurkill, who 
offered all the money he had, or might be able to get, to 
save the holy man's life. This happened at Greenwich, 
where now stands the church of St. Alpluge, as ^Elfheah 
was afterwards called. 

8. The Danish Conquest. King Swegen.— At last in 
1013 England was completely conquered by Swegen, who 
was acknowledged as King, while yEthelred took shelter with 
Duke Richard the Good of Normandy \ whose sister Emma 
he had married. It must be noted to the credit of London 
that it beat off the invaders four times during this reign, 
only yielding to Swegen when all the rest of the country 
had done the same. Swegen died early the next year — ■ 
smitten, so men fancied, by the Martyr-King Edmund, 
whoss church at Bury he had threatened to destroy. Upon 
this /Ethelred was recalled, but died soon after, while the 
war was being kept up between his son Edmund and 
Swegen's son Cnut. 

9. Eadmund or Edmund, surnamed Ironside, April 23- 
Nov. 30, 1016. — There were now two Kings, Edmund 



vt.] CNUT THE DANE. 21 

and Cnut, one being elected in London, and the other at 
Southampton. Edmund, whose strength and valour gained 
him the name of Ironside, fought six pitched battles with 
his rival, but was at last persuaded to consent to share the 
kingdom with him. Edmund had Wessex, East-Anglia, 
Essex, and London for his dominions ; Cnut took the rest. 
On Nov. 30th in the same year Edmund died, after a seven 
months' reign. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE DANISH KINGS. 

Cnut the Dane; his kingdoms; the great Earldoms (1) — story of 
Cnut and the waves (2) — Harold I. ; division between Harold 
and Harthacnut ; death of Alfred ; England reunited ; Hartha- 

cnut (3). 

I. The Danish Line. Cnut or Canute, 1017-1035. — Cnut 
the Dane was now acknowledged as King of all England. 
He had for some time professed Christianity, and though his 
deeds had hitherto been those of a barbarian, in the end he 
proved a good ruler. He gathered about him a standing 
force of from 3,000 to 6,000 paid soldiers, Danes, English- 
men, and recruits from all nations ; but we never hear of 
his employing these Housecarls, or, as we should call them, 
household troops, for purposes of oppression. Besides being 
King of England and Denmark, he also won Norway and 
part of Sweden, but he spent most of his time in this 
country, which he liked better than his other dominions. 
England was divided by him into four governments or 
Earldoms — Wessex ) Mercia, East-Anglict, and Northum- 
be?iaud. 



22 THE DANISH KINGS. [chap. 

2. Story of Cnut and the Waves. — Of the legends about 
Cnut, the most famous is that which records how he one day, 
during the height of his power, ordered a seat to be placed 
for him on the sea-shore, and bade the rising tide respect him 
as its lord, nor dare to wet his feet. The waves, regardless of 
the Royal command, soon dashed over his feet, and the King 
leapt backwards, saying, " Let all men know how empty and 
worthless is the power of Kings, for there is none worthy of 
'the name but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by 
eternal laws." In accordance with the feeling thus awakened 
he thenceforth never wore his crown, but placed it for a 
memorial on the image of our Lord on the Cross. 

3. Harold I., 1035-1040. Harthacnut, 1040-1042. — After 
Cnut's death England was parted between his sons Harold 
and Harthacnut. During this divided reign, Alfred, son of 
y£thelred and Emma, came over from Normandy, hoping for 
a chance of the kingdom. He was seized by Harold's men, 
and his eyes being put out, he died soon after. In the next 
year, 1037, Harold was made ruler over the whole country, 
his fellow-king having never yet left Denmark. But on his 
death, Harthacnut was called to the throne, and his govern- 
ment was so bad that the nation rued its choice. One of his 
first acts was to have the dead body of his half-brother 
Harold dug up and cast into a morass. The London Danes 
buried the corpse again in their own burying-ground, which, 
as St. Clement Danes, preserves the memory of its former 
owners. In 1042 Harthacnut died suddenly at a marriage- 
feast at Lambeth. By his death England and Denmark were 
separated. 



vii.] EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 



n 



CHAPTER VII. 

FROM EDWARD TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

Edward the Confcswr ; Earl Godwin ; the favourites ; banishment, 
return, and deal 7 , of Godwin ; Earl Harold ; death of Edward ; 
Westminster ; Harold named as successor (i) — Ha7-old II. ; 
support of Rome given to William (2) — invasion of Harold 
Hardrada and Tostig ; battle of Stamford Bridge (3) — the 
Norman invasion ; battle of Hastings ; burial of Harold (4) 
—election of the HLtheling Edgar ; coronation of William (5). 

I. House of Cerdic. Eadward or Edward, surnamed 
the Confessor or Saint, 1042- 1066. — The old Royal line 
was now restored, the people at once electing Edward, 
son of ^Ethelred and Emma. Unluckily, the new King, 
brought up in Normandy from boyhood, was no better 
than a foreigner. The Normans indeed were Scandina- 
vians by descent, but their manners, ideas, and language 
were French. Edward's chief desire was to bring over to 
England his own friends, and to load them with honours and 
offices; and he even made a Norman, Robert of Jutnieges, 
Archbishop of Canterbury. At the head of the party op- 
posed to the foreigners stood Godwin, Earl of the West 
Saxons, who had married Gytha, sister of Ulf, Cnut's brother- 
in-law. Godwin was eloquent and popular, but always la- 
boured under a suspicion that he had had a dishonourable 
share in Alfred's death. In 105 1 Eustace Count of Boulogne, 
one of the King's friends, had a brawl with the burghers of 
Dover, arising out of his own insolent conduct. Godwin re- 
fused to inflict any punishment upon the Dover men, who 
belonged to his earldom, before they were properly tried ; 
and this gave such offence to the King's party that he was 



24 EDWARD TO THE CONQUEST [chap. 

banished. The next year however he returned in arms, and 
the Norman knights and priests were glad to get away as 
fast as they could. The Earl died not long after, being 
seized with a fit while dining with the King ; but his power 
passed to his son and successor Harold, who in fact ruled 
the kingdom, and who gained great credit by his victories 
over the Welsh. The King died in 1066, just living long 
enough to finish the building of an abbey on the spot where 
Sebert, first Christian King of the East-Saxons, had founded 
a small monastery to St. Peter, called the West- Minster. 
King Heury III. and his successor afterwards replaced 
Edward's work by the more magnificent church now stand- 
ing. Edward had married. Edith, daughter of Godwin ; but 
had no children. On his death-bed he recommended Earl 
Harold for his successor; though, according to the Normans, 
he had promised that their Duke William should reign after 
him. Indeed, it is said that Harold himself, being once at 
the Norman court, had, willingly or unwillingly, sworn to 
support William. King Edward was buried in his own new- 
Minster, where he was soon honoured as a saint ; for, though 
he utterly neglected his duties as a ruler, he was pious after 
his fashion, and the miseries the people endured under his 
foreign successors led them to look back upon him with 
regret. 

2. House of Godwin. Harold II., Jan. 6 — Oct. 14, 1066. 
— On the day of Edward's death, Earl Harold, though not 
of the Royal house, was elected by the Witan ; the next morn- 
ing the late King was buried, and the new one crowned, in 
the West-Minster. On hearing of this, Duke William was 
speechless with rage. He resolved to appeal to the sword ; 
but as it did not suit his temper to appear the aggressor, 
he did his best to make Europe in general believe he was 
in the right. He sent to crave the blessing of Rome upon 
his enterprise, and found there an ally in the Archdeaa n 



vil] BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 23 

Hihkbrand, who eagerly seized the opportunity for bringing 
the Church of England into more complete obedience to 
Rome. Under Hildebrand's influence the Pope, Alexander 
II, declared William the lawful claimant, and sent a con- 
secrated banner to hallow the attack upon England. 

3. Invasion of Harold Hardrada. — Meanwhile the North 
of England was invaded by Ha?'old, the King of the Nor- 
wegians, a gigantic warrior surnamed Hardrada, that is, 
Stern-in-cojinsel. He was joined by the English King's 
brother, Tostig, who in the last reign had been banished for 
his tyrannical government of Northumberland. At Stamford 
Bridge the Norwegians were suddenly attacked, Sept. 25th, 
by Harold of England, who is represented in an Icelandic 
poem as offering Tostig a third of the kingdom if he would 
return to .his allegiance; Tostig asked what his brother 
would give Hardrada "'"for his toil in coming hither?" 
"Seven feet of earth, or more perchance, seeing he is taller 
than other men." But there can have been no time for 
such parley. The English gained the victory, Hardrada 
and Tostig being among the slain. 

4. Battle of Hastings. — The King was holding the cus- 
tomary victory-feast at York, when a thane of Sussex entered 
to announce that the Normans had landed at Pevensey. 
Making all speed, Harold marched southwards, and pitched 
his camp on the heights of Senlac. Duke William had 
landed unresisted on the defenceless Sussex shore, Sept. 
28th, and occupied Hastings. The eve of battle, so the 
Normans aver, was spent by the English in drinking and 
singing, and by the invaders in prayer and confession. On 
the 14th October the armies joined battle. The combat was 
long and doubtful, but the impatience 'of the militia, who, 
despite Harold's orders, broke their ranks and rushed down 
the hill in pursuit of some retreating Normans, gave the first 
advantage to the enemy, whose archers did the rest. An 



26 THE OLD-ENGLISH_AND NORMANS. [chap. 

arrow pierced the eye of the English King, who, falling, was 
hacked in pieces by four French knights, of whom Eustace 
of Boulogne was one. The thanes and house-carls were 
slaughtered almost to a man around their fallen standard. 
On the morrow the aged Gytha craved the body of her son 
Harold, but the Duke refused to permit it Christian burial. 
Even to find the mangled corpse was no easy task, and two 
canons of Waltham made search for it without success, until 
they brought a former favourite of Harold's, Edith " of the 
swan's neck," to aid them. 

5. Coronation of William. — The Londoners now elected 
to the throne young Edgar, 3. grandson of Edmund Ironside. 
He is commonly spoken of as the ALtheling, a title given to 
kings' sons. But, unsupported by the North-country, they 
ere long tendered the crown to the Norman Duke, whose 
coronation took place on Christmas Day at Westminster. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

The Old-English (1) — the ordeal (2) — slave-trade (3)— London (4)— 
literature (5) — the Normans ; the Bayeux tapestry (6) — castles; 
church-building (7)— feudal tenures ; fealty, homage, and service ; 
the Barons ; decay of feudalism (8) — government (9) — the towns ; 
the gilds (10). 

I. The Old-English. — The English appear to have been 
a well-favoured race, from the days of Pope Gregory's 
"Angels" to the time when the Conqueror, returning to 
Normandy after his coronation, carried in his train the 
yEtheling Edgar and other young Englishmen, on whose 
" girlish grace " and flowing hair the French and Normans 



viii.] THE ORDEAL. 27 

gazed with admiration. Yet young Waltheof, one of those 
whose beauty is thus praised, attained to giant strength, and 
proved that he was no degenerate son of his father, that Earl 
Siward " the Strong " who figures in Shakspere's play of 
Macbeth. The ancient English weapons were the javelin 
and the broadsword ; for the latter the two-handed Danish 
axe was substituted by Cnut. The full equipment of the 
warrior — helm, mail-coat, shield, and axe — was of course 
beyond the means of the mass of the shire militia, most of 
whom came to the battle of Hastings without any defensive 
armour, and some with no better weapons than forks or 
sharpened stakes. Both English and Danes always fought 
on foot ; men of the highest, even of kingly rank, using 
horses on the march only, and dismounting for action. 
The English, among whom all ranks exercised liberal 
hospitality, are described as consuming their substance in 
good cheer, while content with poor houses — unlike the Nor- 
mans and French, who lived frugally in fine mansions— and 
as habitually indulging in coarse gluttony and drunken- 
ness, having learnt the latter vice from the Danes, and 
teaching both to their conquerors. They had however 
better amusements than mere revelry. They took great 
pleasure in poetry, singing, and harp-playing ; and profes- 
sional " gleemen," who combined the characters of juggler, 
tumbler, and minstrel, wandered from house to house dis- 
playing their powers. There were also outdoor sports — wrest- 
ling, leaping, racing, and hunting with net, hound, or hawk. 

2. The Ordeal. — The ordeal was a method of ascertaining 
the guilt or innocence of an accused person by a supposed 
appeal to the judgment of Heaven. After certain religious 
rites, the accused plunged his arm into boiling water, or carried 
a hot iron in his hand for three paces. If in three days the 
scald or burn had healed, he was cleared ; if not, he was 
guilty. A man of ill reputation was obliged to undergo a 



28 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. 

triple ordeal, where one would suffice for persons of credit. 
The Normans introduced in addition the trial by battle, 
which was an appeal to Heaven by means of a' duel 
between accuser and accused. 

3. The Slave-trade. — The crying sin of England, even 
in the estimation of that age, was the slave-trade. Although 
the export of Christian slaves was forbidden by law, nothing 
could check it. The town of Bristol was the chief seat 
of this slave-trade, and strings of young men and women 
were shipped off regularly from that port to Ireland, where 
they found a ready market. The Conqueror was as zealous 
against this traffic as his predecessors, and with no better 
success. What the law failed to do, St. Wulfstan, Bishop 
of Worcester, effected, at least for a season. He visited 
Bristol repeatedly, and did not cease preaching every Sunday 
against the trade until he had prevailed on the burghers to 
abandon it. 

4. London. — At the time of the Norman Conquest, Lon- 
don, so advantageously placed upon the Thames, was already 
the chief city in England, and fast displacing the old West- 
Saxon capital of Winchester. But the London of those 
days was surrounded by wood and water and waste land, 
where the deer and the wild boar roamed. The names of 
Finsbury, Fenchurch, and Moorjields still mark the place of 
a dreary moor or fen. Westminster Abbey was built upon 
what was then a thicket-grown island or peninsula, enclosed 
by river and streams and marshes, and called Thom-ey, that 
is, the Isle of Thorns. By the Abbey was the Palace, where 
the Confessor in his later years chiefly dwelt, that he might 
watch the building of his Minster. The name of Old Palace 
Yard marks where his dwelling-place was ; New Palace Yard 
being so called from the palace built by the Conqueror's 
son William. 

5. Literature.— Among the most ancient specimens of the 



LITERATURE. 29 



literature of the Old-English is the fine poem of the hero 
Beowulf and his combats with the ogre Grendel and with 
a fiery dragon. This tale evidently belongs to heathen 
times, though the text, as we have it, has received some 
Christian touches. Our first Christian poet, Ccedmon, who 
sang of the creation of the world, the entry of Israel into 
Canaan, and the mysteries of the Christian faith, was believed 
by himself and his contemporaries to have received his 
powers by the direct gift of Heaven. He had never learnt 
aught of singing ;— when sometimes at an entertainment it 
was determined that all the guests should sing in turn, 
Casdmon, on seeing the harp approach him, would leave in 
the middle of supper. On one occasion he had thus left 
the feast, and had lain down to sleep in the stable, the care 
of the beasts being committed to him that night. In a 
dream one stood by him and spoke •: " Casdmon, sing me 
something." He pleaded ignorance ; but the command was 
repeated : " Sing the beginning of created things." And 
forthwith he began to sing verses he had never heard before. 
In the morning he revealed his new powers, and was re- 
ceived by the famous Abbess St. Hilda into her monastery 
of Streoneshalh or Whitby, where she ruled over both monks 
and nuns. This story is told by Bczda, called the Venerable, 
a monk of J arrow, who died in 735. He was one of the 
most learned men of his age ; and from his chief work, 
" The Ecclesiastical History of the English People" written 
in Latin, we get great part of our knowledge of those 
times. Ealhwine or Alcuin, born about the time of Bseda's 
death, and educated in the school of York, had so high 
a reputation as a scholar, that Charles the Great invited 
him over to his court to help to lay the foundations of 
learning in his dominions. But the literature of Noithum- 
berland to a great extent perished during the ravages of the 
Danes. It is thought that in King Alfred's reign the Old- 



30 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. 

English Chronicle began to be put together in its present 
shape, after which it was regularly continued. A fine song 
upon the battle of Brunanburh is inserted in the Chronicle, 
as if prose was insufficient to express the national exulta- 
tion. Other snatches of song occur throughout the Chro- 
nicle, and besides those preserved to us there appear to 
have been many popular ballads, sung by the gleemen, 
from which some of the tales about our early Kings were 
derived. 

6. The Normans. — The Normans had become Christian 
and civilized without losing the vigour and adventurous 
spirit of their Scandinavian forefathers. In whatever they 
did, they were foremost ; and though in the arts of peace 
they were not inventors, they acquired, improved, and spread 
abroad all the learning, science, and art of the age. Above 
all, their valour and military skill were renowned throughout 
Europe. They brought new strength and life to the English 
race, and thus the country gained by the conquest in the 
end, and became more free and great for it. The middle- 
class English — the small thanes and the townsmen — soon 
mixed with the foreign settlers, Norman and others ; and as 
early as 1070 French and English were beginning to live 
together on good terms, and to intermarry, so that by the 
time of Henry II. it was impossible, except in the highest 
and lowest ranks, to distinguish one race from the other. 
The Norman method of warfare differed from the English 
and Danish, which it displaced. The Norman and French 
gentlemen fought on horseback armed with lance and sword, 
and would have thought it beneath their dignity to go into 
battle on foot. Of the common men a large number were 
archers ; and in course of time the English became more 
expert than any other nation in the use of the long-bow. 
The attire and weapons both of the conquering and the 
conquered race are well known to us from the famous 



vin.] CASTLE AND CHURCH BUILDING. 31 

tapestry preserved at Bayeux, which represents in a series 
of pictures the history of the Norman Conquest. There 
have been many conjectures as to the origin of the tapestry, 
but the most probable one is that it was a gift from the 
Conqueror's half-brother Bishop Odo to his cathedral at 
Bayeux. It is thought that it may have been worked in 
England. 

7. Castle and Church Building. — One of the earliest 
French words introduced into our language was castle, the 
name and the thing being alike foreign. Fortified towns and 
citadels were indeed familiar to Englishmen, but private fort- 
resses, such as were raised first by the Confessor's favourites, 
were something new, and these were called castles. To pos- 
sess one was the wish of every Norman noble ; for when 
once his donjon, keep, or tower was built, he was king of 
the country round, and, until regular siege was laid to it, 
might laugh at the law. But though a strong, it was a 
dark and dreary dwelling. A splendid specimen of the 
donjon on its grandest scale is the White Tower, built for 
the Conqueror by Gundulf, Bishop of London. William 
raised many castles of his own, to overawe rather than 
to defend the towns beneath them, though he wisely did 
not allow private ones to be reared without royal licence. 
The eleventh century was a great time for church-building, 
and the Normans in England carried on the work vigorously, 
almost all the bishops rebuilding their cathedral churches. 
St. Paul's having been destroyed or damaged by fire, 
Maurice, Bishop of London, began a mighty pile to re- 
place it. His successors continued it, and it became the 
largest church in England. The style of the age, Romanesque, 
as it is called, was greatly improved by the Normans, and 
the new form they gave it is commonly spoken of as the 
Norman style of architecture. Its characteristic points are 
the round arch and massive pier, and narrow window. 



32 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. 

Durham Cathedral, begun under Rufus by Bishop William 
of St. Carileph, and continued by his successor Ralf Flam- 
bard, is a fine specimen of Norman Romanesque. 

8. Feudal Tenures. — After the coming in of the Normans 
feudal ideas and practices obtained much more dominion in 
England, which had hitherto not been affected by them to 
any great extent. The origin of fiefs, or lands granted by a 
lord to his man or vassal on condition of fidelity and service 
in war, and the results of thus holding land by a feudal 
tenure, as it is called, will be found explained at full length 
in the General Sketch of European Histoiy in this series. 
The vassal, when his fief was conferred, swore fealty and 
did homage. In the most complete form of homage, the 
vassal, bare-headed, with belt ungirt, and sword and spurs 
removed, knelt before his lord, between whose hands he 
placed his own, and promised thenceforward to become 
his man, and serve him with life and limb and earthly 
honour, faithfully and loyally. His chief duty was, when 
called upon by his lord, to do military service, on horse- 
back and properly equipped, for a certain time, usually 
forty days in the year ; and every one of the great vassals of 
the Crown was bound to bring so many of these mounted 
followers into the field. Not laymen alone, but bishops 
and clerical and monastic bodies, held lands by military 
service, and furnished their quota of warriors, though by 
the Church's laws ecclesiastics might not serve in person. 
The barons, or great military tenants of the Crown, having 
thus little armies under them, were formidable personages 
when they chose to be rebellious ; but William took all 
possible care that the King should not, as in France, be 
overshadowed by his own vassals. The King was sovereign 
or supreme lord, of whom all land was supposed to be held 
in the first instance ; and the danger of his sovereignty 
becoming a mere name, as was the case in some countries, 



VIIL] GOVERNMENT. 33 

in consequence of its being thought that the inferior vassals 
owed duty only to their immediate lords, and not to the King 
also, was avoided by the passing of a law in a Meeting held 
in 1086, obliging all freemen to swear fealty to William. The 
barons however strove hard to cripple the royal power, 
until the nobility of the Conquest had nearly died out, 
and a new baronage was raised up by Henry II. In the 
following history we shall find the people at first siding with 
the Crown, and afterwards with the barons. Harsh as the 
Norman Kings were, they kept down the worse tyranny of 
their nobles ; but when the Crown had triumphed, and a 
new and better class of nobles had arisen, it became the 
barons' turn to restrain the royal despotism. As a military 
system feudalism after a while fell into decay ; but although 
the main ground for its existence then disappeared, its 
grievances remained, until the abolition under Charles II. 
of the tenures by knight service. In order to secure the aid of 
the great lords, the poorer freemen often sank into the class of 
villains or serfs bound to the soil, — a condition above actual 
slavery, though below freedom. Slavery itself gradually died 
out, as in the course of ages did villainage likewise. 

9. Government. — The Norman Conquest brought about 
considerable changes in the government. The Witena-gemot 
became the King's court of feudal vassals or barons, whose, 
counsel and consent were the only check upon the Sovereign ; 
and the chief administrator of the kingdom was an officer 
called Jttsticiar. The final stroke was put to a change 
which had been gradually coming about for some genera- 
tions. The folkland, or public land, as much as was left of it, 
became Crown land, which the Sovereign could grant away 
at his pleasure. This right was greatly abused until, many 
centuries later, Parliament interfered to limit it. As the 
royal domain has since been under the control of Parliament, 
it has in fact gone back to the condition of folkland. 
T. D 



34 THE OLD-ENGLISH AND NORMANS. [chap. 

io. The Towns. — It has been sarcastically remarked that, 
though we are fond of boasting that the liberties of England 
were bought with the blood of our forefathers, it would be 
more generally accurate to say that they were purchased 
with money. This is peculiarly true in the case of the 
towns. At the time of the Norman Conquest we find the 
inhabitants of towns living under the protection of the King 
or other lord, to whom they paid rents and dues. But the 
regular payments were not in general heavy ; it was the 
tallages or taxes which the foreign kings and lords laid at 
pleasure upon their lands and towns which were grievous. 
Some good, however, came out of this arbitrary taxation. 
As he could take what he would from them, the most 
selfish tyrant could not fail to see that it was his interest that 
his burgesses should thrive and make money, and he was 
therefore willing to encourage them by the grant of pri- 
vileges, which he was the more ready to bestow because 
they were only too glad to pay for them. Henry I. granted 
a charter to the citizens of London, by which he gave 
them large privileges. Two of these may be mentioned 
as being the most curious, though not the most important. 
He permitted them to have their ancient hunting grounds, 
— a mighty favour from one of the Norman Kings, who 
were loth to let anyone hunt but themselves ; and he freed 
them from the obligation to accept the trial by battle. To 
King John London owed the privilege of choosing its own 
Mayor, an officer who, with his French title, first appears 
early in the reign of Richard I. Trade Gilds in like manner 
bought charters. These gilds or sworn brotherhoods were 
very old institutions in England, and in their earliest form 
were associations for mutual defence against injury, or for 
mutual relief in poverty. Of the craft-gilds or associations 
of free handicraftsmen, the most ancient were those of the 
weavers. Henry I. chartered the weavers of Oxford, and 



IX.] WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 35 

also those of London, who paid him in return eighteen 
marks yearly. By this London charter the right of exer- 
cising the craft within the city, Southwark, or other places 
belonging to London, was confined to members of the gild. 
The craft-gilds were in fact a kind of trade-unions, though 
composed of masters ; but these masters were but small 
people, for in those days there were no great employers of 
labour such as there are now, and therefore no large class 
of hired workmen. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WILLIAM I. 

The Norman Kings ; William the Conqueror (1) — confiscations {2) — 
completion of the Norman Conquest ; revolt of the Isle of Ely ; 
the AZth eling Edgar ; execution of Waltheof (3) — Lanfranc ; 
William' 's government ; Domesday; the New Forest (4) — death of 
William; Battle Abbey (5). 

1. The Norman Kings. William I., surnamed the 
Great and the Conqueror, 1066-1087. — The Norman King 
was a hard and determined man, strong in body as in mind ; 
no hand but his could bend his bow, and, until he became 
excessively fat, he was majestic in bearing. His wife, Queen 
Matilda, for whom he had a constant affection, was the 
daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders. 

2. The Confiscations. — According to William's view, all 
Englishmen had been traitors, for they had either tried to 
keep him out, or at least not helped to bring him in ; and 
as traitors, all their estates might be confiscated, that is, 
taken possession of by the State. He at once confiscated a 
great deal, out of which he made grants to his followers ; 

D 2 



36 WILLIAM I. [chap. 

and every fresh disturbance was made a ground for confis- 
cating more. The result was that the country got a set 
of foreign nobles, and that many Englishmen either lost all 
they had, or sank from being great landowners into small 
ones ; but every one, French or English, held his lands 
solely from the King's grace. 

3. Completion of the Norman Conquest. — After an ab- 
sence of less than six months, William went over to 
Normandy, to show himself in his new dignity. Yet in 
truth his conquest was only begun ; and he had the west 
and the north still to win. That part of the country which 
was really in his grasp he left under Odo Bishop of Bayeux 
and William Fitz-Osbern, who treated the English so 
oppressively that the King on his return found matters in a 
troublous state. It took him about four years to get full 
possession of the land ; for there was still spirit among the 
people. But a revolt here and a revolt there, with no com- 
mon plan or leader, were useless against so good a soldier. 
Aided by forces from Denmark, the Northern patriots once 
attacked York, where the Normans had built two castles to 
command the Ouse. The stalwart Earl Waliheof, so the 
story goes, took his stand by a gate ; and as the Normans 
pressed forth one by one, their heads were swept off by 
his unerring axe. William took a savage method of crush- 
ing the North-country into obedience. At the head of his 
troops he marched through the length and breadth of the 
land between York and Durham., and deliberately made it a 
desert. For nine years the ground remained waste, no man 
thinking it worth while to till it ; and even a generation later 
ruined towns and uncultivated fields still bore witness to the 
cruelty of the Conqueror. The country between the Tyne 
and the Tees was harried in like manner, as also Cheshire 
and its neighbourhood, the city of Chester being his last 
conquest. More than 100,000 people, then no small part of 



ix.] WILLIAM'S GOVERNMENT. 37 

the population, are said to have died of hunger and cold that 
winter. William was now master of the land, except that a 
band of outlaws and insurgents, chief among whom was one 
Here-ward, still held together in the Isle of Ely. Finally 
even this last stronghold surrendered to William, but 
Herevvard escaped, and, according to the legend, was the 
terror of the foreigners, until he made his peace with the 
King. One story says that he was nevertheless treacherously 
cut to pieces by a band of Normans. " Had there been three 
more men in the land like him, the Frenchmen would never 
have entered it," is said to have been the remark of one 
of his slayers. Of the other English leaders, the sEtheling 
Edgar settled down for some years at the Conqueror's 
court ; Waltheof, after being taken for a time into high 
favour, was beheaded May 31st, 1076, and was honoured by 
his countrymen as a martyr. 

4. William's Government. — William placed in the arch- 
bishopric of Canterbury, Lanfranc, a Lombard by birth, who 
was held to be. the most learned man in Europe. Under the 
new Primate the Church of England was brought into closer 
connexion with that of Rome, and the bishoprics were 
gradually filled up with foreigners. The rule of the Norman 
King, who even tried, though with small success, to learn 
English, was in some points good ; but in later years 
he grew avaricious and grasping, shutting his eyes to 
any oppression by his officers if it brought him in money. 
In 1085, after consulting with the Witan, he decreed the 
making of Domesday— the great survey of the country, in 
which every estate was entered, with its value at the time 
and in that of Edward. This work, so useful to the historian, 
was then looked on with distrust and indignation, as a step 
towards further taxation. Not a yard of land, not so much 
as an ox, or a cow, or a pig, was left unrecorded, so the 
Chronicler complains. William delighted in hunting, and 



38 WILLIAM I. • [chap. 

his cruel law, which condemned the deerslayer to lose his 
eyes, was another grievance. The New Forest in Hampshire 
was made by him, and stories are told of his destroying 
houses and churches which stood in his way. Long after 
his time, the forests continued to be a source of bitterness, 
on account of the severe laws for the protection of the game 
under which all the dwellers within them were placed. To 
understand how a forest could be made, it must be explained 
that a foi r est was not merely a wood, but rather any uncul- 
tivated ground. 

5. Death of William. — In 1087 William was laying waste 
the borderland between France and Normandy in revenge 
for a stupid jest which the French King had made upon 
his unwieldy figure. While riding through the burning 
town of Mantes, and urging his men to add fresh fuel to 
the flames, he was pitched against the pommel of his saddle 
by the stumbling of his horse, and received an internal 
injury, of which he lingered many weeks. On his death- 
bed he expressed a tardy penitence for his unjust con- 
quest of England, and above all for the harrying of the 
North. What he had won by wrong, he said, he had no 
right to give away, so he would only declare his wish that he 
might be succeeded in England by his second surviving 
son William, who had ever been dutiful to him. Robert, 
the first-born, who had more than once been in rebellion 
against his father, was to have Normandy, and also Maine, 
a province which William had conquered. 

William died at Rouen in Normandy, Sept. 9th, and was 
buried at Caen. Battle Abbey, near Hastings, was built by 
him upon the spot where Harold's standard had stood. 



x.] WILLIAM RUFUS. 39 



CHAPTER X. 

WILLIAM II. 

Election of William ; rebellion of Odo ; character of William ; 
Ralf Flambard ; behaviour of the Royal followers (1) — Norman 
affairs ; Scottish affairs (2) — Flambard' 's financial expedients ; 
Anselm made Primate (3) — the first Crusade ; Normandy mort- 
gaged^) — death of William (5) — building of Westminster Hall (6). 

I. William II., surnamed Rufus, or the Red, 1087-1100. — 
The Conqueror's wish was fulfilled, his son William being 
elected and crowned king, Sept. 26th. But Odo of Bayeux 
worked upon the barons by contrasting the easy-tempered 
Robert with the fierce William, and raised a strong party 
in the Duke's favour. William thereupon made an appeal 
to the English, promising them the best laws they ever 
had, liberty of hunting on their own lands, and freedom 
from unjust taxes. The English answered with hearty 
support, and soon quelled the rebellion. In 1089, Lan- 
franc died, and with him all hope of good government. 
Rufus, as he was called from his ruddy complexion, in- 
herited his father's valour, but no other of his virtues. 
He gave himself up to gross vice, was irreligious and 
blasphemous in speech, and surrounded himself with wicked 
and foolish companions, who gave scandal equally by their 
sins and their follies. His promise to impose no unjust 
taxes was not kept a year ; for being utterly reckless how he 
spent his money, he was soon in need. As an instance of 
his tasteless extravagance we are told that one morning when 
putting on a pair of new boots, he asked his chamberlain 
what they had cost. " Three shillings." Rufus flew into a rage : 
<! How long has the King worn boots at so paltry a price? 



4C WILLIAM II. [chap. 

Go and bring me a pair worth a mark of silver." The 
chamberlain returned with a pair in reality cheaper than 
those rejected, and told him they had cost the price he had 
named. " Ay," said Rufus, "these are suitable to royal 
majesty." After this the chamberlain was sharp enough to 
charge the King what he pleased for his clothes. The 
King's chief adviser was now Ralf, a Norman priest, who 
got the nickname of " Flambard" or the Torch, and whom 
he afterwards made Bishop of Durham. This minister's 
ingenuity was employed in laying on grinding taxes, and 
otherwise raising money ; the halter, it is said, was loosed 
from the robber's neck if he could promise any gain to the 
Sovereign. Wherever the King and the court went, they 
did as much damage as an invading army ; for the royal 
followers lived at free quarters on the country people, and 
often repaid their hosts by plundering and selling their pro- 
perty, and, in wanton insolence, washing their own horses' 
legs with the liquor they did not drink. 

2. Norman and Scottish affairs. — In 1090 the King attacked 
Robert in his Dukedom ; but after a while the brothers were 
reconciled, and turned their joint arms against their third 
brother Henry, whom they drove from his stronghold on 
Mount St. Michael in Normandy. The King then returned 
to deal with an invasion of the Scots ; and made a peace 
with their King Malcolm, who did him homage. Malcolm's 
second invasion in 1093 cost him his life, as he was killed 
before Alnwick. In the time between the two inroads the 
English King restored Carlisle, which had been long in 
ruins, built a castle there, and colonized the city with 
peasants from the South. 

3. Archbishop Anselm. — Flambard's great device in the 
way of raising money was for the King to take possession of 
all vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and farm out their lands 
and revenues to the highest bidder. If he at last named a 



X. ] NORM AND Y MOR TGA GED. 4 1 

new bishop or abbot, it was understood that the honour 
was to be paid for. The See of Canterbury had thus never 
been filled since Lanfranc's death. But in Lent, 1093, the 
King falling grievously sick, and being pricked in con- 
science, in his terror promised good government, and named 
to the archbishopric Anselm, an Italian by birth, and 
Abbot of Bee. Anselm, a man of the greatest learning and 
holiness, who was afterwards canonized as saint, was un- 
willing, and with good reason, to receive the dangerous 
honour ; for no sooner had William got well than he fell 
back into worse ways than ever. The Archbishop was 
treated with studied harshness until, after many quarrels, he 
withdrew to Rome. 

4. Normandy mortgaged. — Meanwhile Normandy, which 
the King had again striven to win by force, came quietly 
within his grasp. From early ages it had been the practice 
of Christians to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to pray 
at the sepulchre of Christ : but about this time a flame of 
indignation was raised throughout Europe by tales of the 
wrongs done by the Turks both to the native Christians of 
Palestine and to the pilgrims. At the call of the Pope an 
armed expedition termed a Crusade, of which an account 
will be found in the " General Sketch" set out in 1096 to 
rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Mohammedans ; and 
among those who were stirred by the prevailing enthusiasm 
for crusading was Robert of Normandy. To meet the ex- 
pense of his undertaking, he mortgaged for 10,000 marks 
his dominions to his brother for five years, and set off 
joyously to Palestine, when William entered into possession 
of Normandy. 

5. Death of William. — On the 2nd August, 1 100, William, 
who was passionately fond of the chase, was hunting in 
the New Forest. Some vague suspicion of intended foul 
play was probably afloat, for evil dreams had been dreamed 



42 HENRY I. [chap. 

by himself and others, and on this account he had been 
half persuaded not to ride that day ; but wine kindled his 
courage, and exclaiming, " Am I an Englishman, who will 
put off a journey for an old wife's fancy?" he went forth. 
Soon after he was found lying pierced by the shaft of a cross- 
bow, and in the agonies of death. Suspicion fell on one of 
the hunting party, Walter Tyrell, who fled for his life and got 
away to France. That he had accidentally shot the King 
became the common belief, but he always denied it ; and as 
no one ever owned to having seen Rufus struck, the matter 
remains in doubt. A poor charcoal-burner alone in a cart 
carried the King's body to Winchester, where it was buried 
without any religious rite ; for it was thought unseemly to 
bestow such upon him who had been thus cut off in the 
midst of unrepented sins. 

6. Westminster. — Westminster Hall was first built by 
Rufus, whose love of architecture was one of his few better 
tastes ; but it was afterwards cased over and otherwise 
altered in the time of Richard II. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HENRY I. 

Henry I. ; Charter of Liberties (i) — marriage with Edith- Matilda ; 
invasion of Duke Robert; Normandy won by Henry (2) — 
Dispute between Henry and Anselm (3) — The Welsh Marches; 
settlement of Flemings (4) — death of the Queen ; death of William ; 
second marriage of Henry ; crown settled on Matilda (5) — 
death of Henry ; his government (6). 

I. Henry I., surnamed the Clerk or Scholar, 1100-1135. 
Charter of Liberties.— Henry, youngest son of the 



xi.] NORMANDY WON. 43 

Conqueror, was one of the hunting-party when Rufus fell. 
As soon as he heard of his brother's death, he galloped for 
.Winchester, and there made himself master of the royal 
treasures. Three days later, he was crowned at Westminster, 
thus forestalling his brother Robert, who was still loitering 
on his way home from the Crusade. To reconcile all to 
his accession, he put out a Charter of Liberties, in which 
he promised to the Church neither to retain, sell, nor farm 
vacant benefices ; and to his vassals freedom from sundry 
exactions and restrictions, bidding them make the same 
concessions to their own vassals. To the nation at large 
he promised that the laws of King Edward should be put 
in force. 

2. Normandy won. — The evil companions of Rufus were 
removed, and Archbishop Anselm was recalled. Further to 
win the people's hearts, Henry took to wife Edith, daughter 
of Malcolm of Scotland, and, on the side of her mother, 
Margaret, descended from the West-Saxon Kings. She 
assumed the Norman name of Matilda, and was by the 
people surnamed "the Good." The nobles were for the 
most part unfriendly to the King, and, relying on their 
support, Duke Robert invaded England "to push his claim. 
The English held fast to Henry, and Anselm exerting his 
influence over the nobles, the dispute between the brothers 
was made up without bloodshed. After this, the King set 
himself to break the power of his barons, whom he effectually 
tamed for the remainder of his reign. His next object was 
to wrest Normandy from his broth ei ; and by the victory of 
^Tinchebrai in 1106 he obtained possession both of the 
Dukedom and of Robert, whom he kept a prisoner until 
his death in 1 135. The yEtheling Edgar, who, having 
followed Robert, was among the prisoners, was allowed to 
live unmolested in England. 

3. Archbishop Anselm. — About the same time a dispute 



44 HENR Y I. [chap. 

between Henry and Anselm was brought to an end. The 
English Kings claimed that bishops and abbots should be 
nominated by them, and become their vassals like the lay 
barons. Everyone remembered how Rufus had abused 
this right, which was now contested by the Pope, and 
Anselm made a stand for the Church's liberties. In the 
end both sides gave way somewhat ; but that Henry should 
peaceably yield -anything was in itself a victory. The 
Church was at this time the only check upon the will of 
rulers ; but the power of the Pope, which Anselm helped to 
strengthen, soon became in its turn an evil. Anselm died 
in 1 109. 

4. "Wales. The Flemish Settlement. — The Conqueror 
had attempted to keep Wales in order by building castles on 
the marches, that is, frontiers, and giving them in charge 
to nobles of his — the Lords Marchers, as they were called — 
to whom he granted all the land they could conquer from 
the Welsh. Rufus and Henry followed the same plan ; and 
the latter also tried the effect of planting a colony of 
foreigners. He placed Flemish emigrants, a people at 
once- brave and industrious, in the district of Ross in Pem- 
brokeshire, where they grew rich by tilling the ground and 
manufacturing cloth, and held their own against all the 
efforts of the Welsh princes to turn them out. 

5. Succession of Matilda. — Queen Matilda died in n 18, 
leaving two children, — William, and Matilda or Maude, 
married to the Emperor Henry V. In 11 20 William, a 
youth of nineteen, was lost by shipwreck in the Channel, 
Though proud and dissolute, he yet sacrificed his life to his 
generosity. He had put off from the sinking ship in a boat, 
but the shrieks of his half-sister, the Countess of Perche, 
moved him to row back to the wreck, where his boat was 
sunk under the multitude of people who leapt in. •As the 
King's second marriage with Adelals of Louvaln proved 



xi.] DEATH OF HENRY. 45 

childless, he determined to settle the crown on his lately- 
widowed daughter Matilda. The barons were loth to con- 
sent, for it was not then the custom for women to rule ; 
but they were obliged to yield, and all swore to main- 
tain Matilda's succession. Her father then married her, 
little to her liking, to Geoffrey Count of Anjou, a lad of 
sixteen. 

6. Death of Henry; his Government. — King Henry, the 
only one of the Conqueror's sons who was born in England, 
died in Normandy, Dec. ist, 1135, in consequence, it is said, 
of a surfeit of lampreys. The reign of Henry was a time of 
misery ; his frequent wars caused England to be ground down 
under an unendurable taxation, while a succession of bad 
seasons added to the sufferings of the people. But they 
accounted Henry a good king, even though he Avas so little 
grateful for their support that he never would raise an Eng- 
lishman to any office ; and they saw in him " the Lion of 
Justice" spoken of in the current prophecies attributed to 
the Welsh soothsayer Merlin. He improved the administra- 
tion o.f justice, and granted charters to the towns. By severe 
punishment he put a stop to his followers' plundering, which 
had got to such a pitch that the people were wont to Hy with 
their property to the woods as soon as they heard of their 
Sovereign's approach. Indeed his great merit was the 
rigorous justice he dealt out to thieves and robbers. Un- 
feeling and grasping as he was, he suffered no tyranny 
but his own ; and under him there was order, though not 
freedom. 



46 STEPHEN. [chap. 



CHAPTER XII. 

STEPHEN. 

Confusion after Henry's death (i) — election of Stephen of Blois (2) — 
battle of the Standard (3) — disorderly state of the country ; war 
of Stephen and Matilda ; settlement of the succession ; death of 
Stephen (4). 

1. Stephen of Blois, 1135-1154. Confusion after Henry's 
death. — As soon as Henry's iron hand was removed, the 
submission into which he had crushed his subjects ceased. 
He had guarded the forests with jealous tyranny ; now 
everyone fell to hunting down the game, which was thus 
almost extirpated, "insomuch that it is reported a single 
bird was a rare sight, and a stag was nowhere to be seen." 
But with his tyranny his good government came also to an 
end ; and robbery, lawless violence, and private feuds broke 
out unchecked. 

2. Election of Stephen. — Stephen of Blots, Count of 
Boulogne, and son of Henry's sister Adela, came forward as 
a candidate for the crown, regardless of his oath to his cou- 
sin the 'Empress, as Matilda was commonly called. His 
easy manners and readiness to laugh and talk with the 
common people had made him popular ; the Londoners 
hailed him with joy, and he was elected King, and 
crowned at Westminster. The barons, who disliked Ma- 
tilda, and still more her husband, easily reconciled their 
consciences to a similar breach of their oaths ; and Stephen, 
having possessed himself of Henry's vast treasures, was 
able to buy support. He surrounded himself with foreign 
mercenaries (that is, soldiers who hired themselves out to 
any prince who would pay them), made large promises of 



xil] WAR OF STEPHEN AND MATILDA. 47 

good government which he did not keep, and gave extra- 
vagant grants of Crown lands. 

3. Battle of the Standard. — David King of Scots, Matilda's 
uncle, took up her cause, and made inroads upon England, 
once getting as far as Yorkshire. The wild Scots spread 
over the country, burning, desecrating, enslaving, and 
slaughtering, until Thurstan, the aged Archbishop of York, 
mustered the North-country barons and people against the 
invaders. " The Battle of the Standard" so called from the 
tall cross raised on a car which accompanied the English 
host, was fought near Northallei'ton, Aug. 22nd, 1 138, and 
ended in the utter rout of the Scots. 

4. War of Stephen and Matilda. — Meanwhile Stephen, 
whose power of purchasing support was exhausted, could no 
longer control the barons. The country was already in 
utter disorder. Robert of Caen, Earl of Gloucester, was 
Matilda's chief friend, and his partisans in Bristol robbed 
and plundered, seizing on men of wealth and carrying them 
off, blindfolded and gagged with sharp-toothed bits, to be 
starved and tortured for ransom. The highways were in- 
fested with thieves of gentle and peaceable appearance, 
who entered into courteous conversation with everyone 
until they could entrap some victim worth the seizing ; 
and so common were these that at last a traveller would 
fly as soon as he espied a stranger on the road. The 
barons had been suffered to build themselves castles un- 
checked ; and secure in these, which they garrisoned with 
savage ruffians, they were the worst robbers. Neither man 
nor woman who had any property was safe from them ; they 
made the towns pay them taxes, and plundered and burnt 
them when they could give no more. Even churches and 
churchyards were no longer respected by them. The land 
lay waste, for it was useless to cultivate it, and matters kept 
growing worse and worse till men bitterly exclaimed that 



48 HENRY II. [chap. 

" Christ and His saints slept." The Empress landed in Eng- 
land in 1 1 39, upon which civil war fairly broke out, carried 
on by both sides chiefly with mercenaries, while the barons 
fought and plundered on their own account. Early in 1141 
Stephen was taken prisoner at Lincoln, and sent, loaded 
with chains, to Bristol Castle ; while Matilda, acknowledged 
as Lady of the English, entered London, where her im- 
perious conduct so irritated the citizens that they drove her 
out before she could be crowned. In the autumn Stephen 
was exchanged against the Earl of Gloucester, and the war 
being renewed, he besieged the Empress in Oxford Castle. 
The garrison being straitened for food, Matilda shortly 
before Christmas 1 142 made her escape with great daring and 
ingenuity. The ground being covered with snow, she one 
night wrapped herself in a white cloak so as not to attract at- 
tention, and attended by three knights she passed through the 
posts of the enemy, crossing the river on the ice, and reached 
Wallingford Castle in safety. The struggle went on until in 
1 153 the bishops brought about a peace, by which Stephen, 
who had recently lost his eldest son Eustace, was to keep 
the kingdom for his life, and was to be succeeded by 
Matilda's eldest son, Henry. The next year, Oct. 25th, 
1 1 54, Stephen died. His wife, Matilda of Boulogne, who 
had valiantly supported him in his warfare, had died three 
years earlier. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HENRY II. 

Henry of ' Anjou (1) — Thomas of London,; Constitutions of Claren- 
don ; flight, return, and murder of Thomas (2) — rebellion of 
Henry's sons ; Henry' 's penance ; capture of William the Lion (3) 



xiii.] HOUSE OF ANJOU. 49 

—further rebellions of Henry 's sons; death of Henry; his 
government (4) — conquest of Ireland ; Hadrian IV.; Strongbotv 
and his comrades ; Henry acknowledged by the native chieftains ; 
condition of the cotmtry (5). 

1. House of Anjou. Henry II., 1154-1189. — Even before 
he succeeded, at the age of twenty-one, to the English crown, 
Henry was a powerful prince. He was a vassal of the 
King of France, but had got so many fiefs into his hands 
that he was stronger than his lord and all the other Crown 
vassals put together. Anjou he had from his father, Nor- 
mandy and Maine from his mother, and the County of 
Poitou and Duchy of Aquitaine he had gained by marrying 
their heiress Eleanor a few weeks after her divorce from 
Loitis VII. of France. Energetic, hard-headed, and strong- 
willed, he was well fitted for the task of bringing England 
into order ; and under the firm rule of a foreigner who had 
no national prejudices of his own, the distinction between 
Norman and Englishman faded away. By him the barons 
were again brought under authority, and all castles built with- 
out royal leave were razed. He had been well educated by 
the Earl of Gloucester, and took pleasure in the company 
of learned men ; but his literary refinement had not taught 
him to curb his fierce temper, and in his fits of passion he 
behaved like a madman, striking and tearing at whatever 
came within reach. His private life was not creditable ; 
his marriage, on his side one of policy, was unhappy, and 
the romantic legend told of his favourite " Fair Rosamund " 
conveys the popular notion of his wife's fierce nature. 

2. The Constitutions of Clarendon. — In 1 162 Henry pro- 
cured the election of his intimate friend the Chancellor, 
Thomas Beckct, to the archbishopric of Canterbury. 
Thomas was the son of a wealthy London citizen of 
Norman descent ; and though an ecclesiastic, he busied 
himself wholly in secular matters. As soon however as 

£ 



S o HENRY II. [chap. 

Thomas became Archbishop, he gave up his former pomp, 
led an austere life, and resigned the Chancellorship. Henry 
was offended, and the two were already at variance when 
they came to a downright quarrel on the subject of the 
church courts. The Conqueror had made the Bishops hold 
courts of their own for the trial of cases in which ecclesi- 
astics were concerned. Henry now wished to bring the 
clergy under the criminal jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, 
and this Thomas strongly opposed ; but the King to a great 
extent carried his point by a series of resolutions, called " the 
Constitutions of Clarendon? because they were passed at that 
place, in a great council of prelates and barons, Jan. 1164. 
By these the clergy were brought much more under the royal 
authority. The Pope refused to give his approval to the 
Constitutions, and Henry spent his anger on the Archbishop, 
who fled to foreign parts. The quarrel, kept up for six years, 
was embittered in 11 70 by a dispute about the coronation 
of the King's eldest son, whom he designed for his viceroy 
in England. No one but the Archbishop of Canterbury, so 
Thomas and Pope-Alexander III. declared, had a right to 
crown the King ; but Henry got the Archbishop of York 
to perform the ceremony. Partly through fear of the Pope's 
anger, partly through the mediation of King Louis VII. 
of France, Henry soon afterwards consented to a recon- 
ciliation, and Thomas returned amid the rejoicing of the 
people. Haughty and unyielding as ever, he let it be known 
that he brought with him the Pope's sentence of excom- 
munication against Roger Archbishop of York and two 
other prelates. Henry flew into one of his fits of passion : 
" What cowards have I brought up in my court ! " he ex- 
claimed ; "not one will deliver me from this low-born 
priest ! " Four knights, taking him at his word, at once 
proceeded to Canterbury, and cut the Archbishop to pieces 
on the pavement of his own cathedral, Dec. 29th, 11 70. 



xiii.] i DEATH OF HENRY. 51 

Henry, horror-struck at this result, cleared himself with 
the Pope by making oath that he had had no complicity 
in the murder, and by yielding some points to the Church. 

3. Henry's penance. — Henry's life was clouded by quarrels 
with his sons. Besides Henry, " the Younger King" there 
was Richard, who had received the government of Aqui- 
taine, and Geoffrey, to whom belonged the Duchy of Britanny, 
by his marriage with its heiress Constance. The King's ill- 
wishers — Louis of France, and his own neglected wife Eleanor 
— stirred up these boys to rebel against their father. In 1173 
not only his sons, but also the Kings of France and Scot- 
land, and many nobles of England and Normandy, leagued 
together against him. Thinking that these calamities were 

-caused by the Divine wrath for the murder of St. Thomas, 
as the Archbishop was now styled, Henry did penance and 
let himself be scourged before the Saint's tomb. Soon he 
learnt that on the day on which he had left Canterbury, 
having completed his penance, the King of Scots, William 
the Lion, had been captured at Alnwick. The rebellion 
was soon at an end, and no one concerned met with hard 
usage except the King of Scots, who was constrained to enter 
into more complete and galling vassalage to England. By 
Henry's successor however he was permitted to buy back 
his freedom, England only retaining a vague claim to lordship 
over Scotland. 

4. Death of Henry.— In 1183 Henry's sons were again at 
war with him and with each other. In June the Younger 
King, who was a mere tool of the discontented nobles, died, 
imploring his father's forgiveness. Geoffrey was pardoned, 
rebelled again, and died in 11 86. Richard, after remain- 
ing faithful for some time, in 1 188 sought the protec- 
tion of Philip Augustus King of France, and proceeded to 
seize upon his father's foreign dominions. Henry, after a 
feeble resistance, submitted to the demands of his enemies. 

E 2 



52 • HENRY II. [chap. 



He asked for a list of the barons who had joined the last 
confederacy against him, and the first name he saw was that 
of his youngest and favourite son John. This broke his heart ; 
he was thrown into a fever, and died at Chinon, July 6th, 1 189. 
He is often called " Plantagenet" a surname borne by one of 
his ancestors — probably because his device was a sprig of 
filante de genit or broom — and afterwards adopted by his de- 
scendants. Henry II. laid the foundations of good government 
in England, arranging the administration of justice, dividing 
the country into circuits, and taking pains to appoint faithful 
judges. In this reign scntage, or money paid by the military 
tenants in lieu of service, was first levied. Trusting the 
people better than the barons, Henry re-organized the militia, 
and every freeman was bound to provide himself with arms 
according to his position. 

5. Conquest of Ireland. — In the first year of his reign 
Henry had obtained authority to invade Ireland from Pope 
Hadrian IV., or Nicholas Brakespere, noted as the only 
Englishman who has ever filled the Papal See. Nothing, 
however, was done till 1 169, when Dermot of Leinster, a fugi- 
tive Irish King, had obtained Henry's permission to enlist 
adventurers in his service. A ruined nobleman, Richard of 
Clare, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed " Strongbow? and two 
Norman gentlemen from Wales, Robert Fitz-Stephen and 
Maurice Fits-Gerald, accepted Dermot's offers, and, raising 
an army, carried everything before them in Ireland. On 
Dermot's death, Strongbow, who had married his daughter 
Eva, assumed the royal authority ; but finding that Henry 
grew jealous, he thought it prudent to give up his con- 
quests to him. Henry accordingly came over in 1171, his 
sovereignty was generally acknowledged, and four years later 
a treaty was made by which Roderick King of Connaught, 
the head King of Ireland, became his liegeman ; but he could 
not keep any hold over the country. Ireland, though supposed 



xiv.] RICHARD THE LION-HEART. 53 

to be under English rule, remained for centuries in utter 
disorder, the battle-ground of Irish chiefs and Norman- 
descended lords, who became as savage and lawless as 
those whom they had conquered. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RICHARD I. 

Richard Cceur de Lion; the Crusade (1) — William Longchamp ; 
"John placed at the head of the government (2) — Richard taken 
by Leopold of Austria ; transferred to the Emperor; brought 
before the Diet ; ransomed (3) — death of Richard ; Bertrand de 
Gurdon (4) — Berengaria. of Navarre ; legendary reputation of 
Richard (5). 

1. Richard I., surnamed Cceur de Lion, or Lion-Heart, 
1189-1199. — Richard, having spent his youth in Southern 
Gaul, then the school of music and poetry, had acquired its 
tastes, and had some skill in composing verses in its 
language. But his passion was for military glory, which his 
surpassing strength and valour well fitted him to win. Fierce 
and passionate, he yet was not without generous impulses ; 
and after the fashion of a Crusader, he was zealous for reli- 
gion. For the English he cared little, except as they. supplied 
him with men and money, and during his whole reign he 
was only twice in the country, for a few months at a time. 
After his coronation, Richard at once made ready for a 
Crusade in company with his friend Philip Augustus of 
France. To raise money, he sold earldoms, Crown lands, 
offices of State. " I would sell London if I could find a 
buyer," he said. At Midsummer 1190, Richard and Philip 
set out together for the Holy Land ; but before they got 



54 RICHARD I. [chap. 

there, their friendship had cooled. Jealousies and quarrels 
ruined the Crusade ; Philip soon went home to lay plans for 
possessing himself of Richard's continental dominions ; the 
other crusading princes were disgusted with Richard's arro- 
gance, and he with their lack of zeal. After many brilliant 
exploits, the King, weakened by fever, ended by making a 
truce with the Sultan Saladin. His ill success had been 
great grief to him. The Crusaders had not ventured to 
attack Jerusalem, the object of their enterprise ; and when 
— so runs the tale — Richard had come within sight of 
it, he had covered his eyes with his garment, praying God 
with tears not to let him look upon the Holy City, since he 
could not deliver it. 

2. The Chancellor Longchamp. Regency of John. — During 
this reign, England was really ruled by the King's Justiciars. 
The first of these, the Chancellor William Longchamp, 
Bishop of Ely, a Frenchman, was a faithful servant to 
Richard, but unpopular with the nobles, and filled with a 
scornful dislike of the English. He was at last deposed 
from his office by a meeting of earls, barons, and London 
citizens, and the King's brother John placed at the head of 
the government. The news that his brother was plotting 
mischief with Philip of France decided the King to give 
up his Crusade, and set out home. But month after month 
passed away without anything being heard of him, and John, 
declaring that he was dead, laid claim to the Crown. 

3. Captivity of Richard. — The King, while travelling home- 
wards through Austria, had been seized by Leopold, Duke 
of that country, who had been insulted by Richard during 
the Crusade. The Duke sold his captive to the Emperor 
Henry VI., who imprisoned him, loaded with irons; in a 
castle in the Tyrol. In the end he was brought before the 
Diet, or meeting of princes of the Empire, on an accu- 
sation of having procured the assassination of a fellow 



xiv.] DEATH OF RICHARD. 55 

Crusader, Conrad Marquis of Montferrat. From this charge 
he cleared himself, but the Emperor insisted on so heavy 
a ransom that to raise it every Englishman had to give a 
fourth of his income ; the very church plate was sold or 
pawned. After more than a year's captivity, Richard was 
freed, in Feb. 11 94. "Take care of yourself, for the devil 
is let loose," so Philip wrote to John, when he heard of the 
ransom being fixed ; but Richard inflicted on the brother 
who had tried to bribe the Emperor to detain him in prison, 
no punishment beyond depriving him of his lands and 
castles. 

4. Death of Richard. — In March 1199, the King perished 
in a petty quarrel with the Viscount of Limoges, one of his 
foreign barons, about a treasure which had been discovered 
on the estate of the latter. While besieging the Viscount's 
castle of Chains, Richard was wounded in the shoulder by 
an arrow. The castle being stormed and taken, the King 
ordered all the garrison to be at once hanged, reserving only 
Bertrand de Gurdon, the crossbowman who had given him 
his death-wound. Finding his end drawing near, Richard 
had Bertrand brought before him. " What harm have I 
done to you, that you have killed me ? " The young archer, 
answering that his father and two brothers had fallen by 
Richard's hand, bade the King take what revenge he would. 
" I forgive you my death," said Richard, and he ordered his 
release. Nevertheless after the King's death, Marchadee, 
the leader of his mercenaries, had the archer barbarously 
executed. 

Richard early in his reign married Berengaria of Navarre, 
but had no children. 

5. Legendary reputation of Richard. — Legends soon 
gathered round the striking figure of Cceur de Lion, and he 
became a hero of romance. His surname probably suggested 
the tale of his having while in prison torn out with his hands 



56 JOHN. [chap. 

the heart of a lion sent to slay him ; another and a more 
touching story of his captivity tells how his faithful minstrel 
Blondel wandered seeking him, and discovered him by means 
of a song. Little as he had done for England, he came 
to be looked on as a national hero ; while among the 
Mohammedans, his prowess was remembered in common 
phrases. " Hush ye, here is King Richard ! " the mother 
would say to her crying child ; and the Arab horseman 
would exclaim to his starting horse, " Dost think it is King 
Richard?" 



CHAPTER XV. 

JOHN. 

Election of John ; Arthur of Britanny ; forfeiture of the French 
possessions (i) — quarrel between John and the Pope; sentence 
of deposition ; John becomes a vassal and tribidary of Rome (2) 
— " The Army of God and His Holy Church ; " Magna Carta or 
the Great Charter (3) — War between John and the Barons; 
the crown offered to Louis of France (4) — John's death ; his 
children (5). 

I. John, surnamed Sansterre or Lackland (a name given 
to younger sons whose fathers died before they were of age 
to hold fiefs), 1199-1216. — In England John was chosen King; 
but in Richard's foreign dominions there was a party which 
desired for their Duke young Arthur of Britanny, son of 
John's elder brother Geoffrey ; and Philip of France, for his 
own purposes, took up the lad's cause. A victory before Mini- 
beati in Poitou threw into John's power Arthur, together with 
many of his partisans, some of whom were starved to death 
in prison. It was believed that the King ordered his nephew's 
eyes to be put out, but that; the youth's keeper, Hubert de 



xv.] THE INTERDICT. 57 

Burgh, would not carry out the sentence. However this may 
have been, Arthur disappeared after a few months' captivity, 
and rumour accused his uncle of having stabbed him with his 
own hand. John was summoned by Philip to clear himself 
before the French peers, and on non-appearance he was 
adjudged to have forfeited his fiefs. Philip speedily made 
himself master of Normandy and John's other possessions 
in Northern Gaul; but the Duchy of Aquitaine, and the 
Channel Islands, fragments of the Norman Duchy, were left 
to the English King. To our country these losses proved a 
gain. Our sovereigns then became Englishmen, instead of 
being merely French princes holding England. 

2. The Interdict. — In 1205 John embroiled himself with 
Pope Innocent III., the dispute arising on the question 
whether the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, or the 
bishops of the province, had the right of electing the Arch- 
bishop. The Pope declared for the monks, who on his re- 
commendation elected Stephen Langton, an Englishman 
then in Rome. As the King refused to recognize this 
election, Innocent laid the kingdom under an interdict. 
That is, the churches were closed, and the Sacraments no 
longer administered, except to infants and the dying ; 
marriages took place only in the church porch ; and the 
dead were buried silently and in unconsecrated ground. 
But as John would not give way, Innocent in 12 12 declared 
his vassals absolved from their allegiance, and called on all 
Christian princes and barons to aid in dethroning him. 
Under this sentence, which Philip was preparing to carry 
out, John's courage failed him. The revival of the Forest 
tyranny, his oppressive taxes, above all, his intolerable 
cruelty and licentiousness, had set high and low against 
him, and he could not count upon the support of his 
subjects. One Peter, a hermit of Yorkshire, foretold that 
when the next Ascension-day should be passed John would 



58 JOHN. [chap. 

have ceased to reign ; and in superstitious terror, the King not 
only admitted Langton to the Archbishopric, but also by 
charter granted to the Pope the Kingdoms of England and 
Ireland to be henceforth held by John and his heirs by a yearly 
rent. On the 15th May, I2i3,in the Templars' Church near 
Dover, he made his submission, and swore fealty to Innocent. 
In a few days the Feast of the Ascension passed, and John 
had the hermit hanged for a false prophet. But people 
murmured that Peter had spoken true ; John was no longer 
a sovereign, but a vassal. 

3. Magna Carta. — The Barons were now resolved to put 
a check upon John's tyranny ; and, in spite of his friendship 
with Rome, Archbishop Langton and the English Church 
made common cause with them. On Nov. 20th, 12 14, 
the confederates took an oath upon the altar at St. 
Edmundsbury to withdraw their allegiance, if John should 
refuse their demands. In his passion the King swore that 
he would never grant them liberties which would make 
him a slave ; but when the confederates—" the Army 0/ 
God and His Holy Church "—marched under Robert Fitz- 
W alter upon London, and were willingly admitted, he was 
brought to submit. At Runnymede, a meadow near Wind- 
sor, on June 15th, 121 5, the King met the Barons, and 
signed the Charter which embodied their demands. Thus 
was won Magna Carta, the Great Charter, held sacred 
to this day as the foundation of our liberties. Yet it 
was no new law, but rather a correction of abuses. The 
first clause secured the liberties of the Church ; others 
were devoted to removing the grievances of the Barons as 
tenants of the Crown. Of these an important one was 
that no scut age or aid (assistance in money from a vassal 
to his lord) should be levied without the consent of the 
King's tenants in council assembled, except on three 
specified occasions. But, to their honour, these patriot 



xv.] JOHN AND THE BARONS. 59 

nobles did not take thought for themselves only. The 
Charter provided that the rights they claimed shouL 
extended by them to their own tenants. The "liberties 
and free customs " of London and other towns were se- 
cured. Protection was given against oppressions arising 
from process for debts or services due to the Crown ; 
against excessive fines ; and the abuses of the prerogative 
of purveyance and ftre-eniptio7i — that is, the right claimed 
by the Crown of buying provisions at its own valuation, 
and of impressing carriage for its service. The King should 
no longer make money out of the proceedings in courts of 
law : " To no man will we sell," so runs the clause, " to no 
man will we deny, or delay, right or justice." Trade was 
encouraged by the promise that merchants should safely 
enter, leave, and pass through England without exactions. 
Above all, the liberty of the subject was secured. " No 
freeman " was to be " taken, or imprisoned, or disseized 
[deprived of his land], or outlawed, or banished, or in any 
way damaged, . . . except by lawful judgment of his peers, 
or by the law of the land." Some provision was made 
against the oppression even of the villain. 

4. War between John and the Barons. — Though John 
sealed the Charter with a cheerful air, he burst into a rage 
after the assembly had broken up, and began to devise 
means of revenge. He implored the aid of his lord 
the Pope, who thereupon annulled the Charter, that is, 
declared it to be of none effect ; telling the Barons that if 
they would submit, he would see that they were not op- 
pressed. But rebuke, excommunication, the laying of London 
under an interdict, all failed to daunt the Barons, who are 
said to have applied to the Pope the words of Isaiah, 
"Woe unto him that justifieth the wicked for reward!" 
Langton would not pronounce the excommunication, and 
was in consequence suspended by Innocent from the exercise 



6o HENRY III. [chap. 

of his functions as Archbishop. John had more potent 
weapons in store. Mercenary soldiers — savage freebooters 
trained to slaughter and spoil — were brought from the 
Continent to overrun England ; and with these he marched 
into Scotland, devastating as he went, in order to punish 
the northern barons and their ally, young Alexander II. 
King of Scots. Every morning he fired with his own hands 
the house in which he had rested during the night. At 
last the Barons took the desperate step of offering the 
crown to Louis, eldest son of Philip of France. Louis 
accordingly came over with a French army, and at first 
was well supported. But when the Barons found the 
foreign prince granting lands to his own countrymen, they 
grew suspicious of him, and some of them went over to 
John. 

5. Death of John. — While attempting to cross with his 
army the Wash of Lincolnshire, John's supplies and treasures 
were all swallowed by the rising tide. Vexation, coupled 
with a surfeit of peaches and ale — or, according to a later 
tradition, poison administered by a monk — threw him into a 
fever, of which he died at Newark, Oct. 18th, 12 16, leav- 
ing an evil name behind him. By his second wife, Isabel 
of Angouleme, he had two sons — Henry, who succeeded 
him, and Richard Earl of Cornwall, who was elected, by a 
party in Germany, King of the Romans. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HENRY III. 

Henry of Winchester; departure of loins (1) — marriage of Heniy ; 
the favourites ; Ins diameter ; the Londoners (2) — the Provisions of 
Oxford (3)— 7 lie Ba ions War; (4) Earl Simon 's Parliament (5) 



xvi.] CHARACTER OF HENRY. 6 1 

— battle of Evesham and death of Simon ; the Disinherited (6) — 
death of Henry (7) — Magna Carta ; (8) — Gothic architecture (9). 

1. Henry III. of Winchester, 1216-1272. — Ten days after 
John's death, the Royalists crowned at Gloucester his eldest 
son Henry, then only nine years old. A plain circle of gold 
was placed on the child's head, for the crown had been lost 
with the rest of the royal treasures. William Earl of Pem- 
broke, a wise and good statesman, was made the young King's 
guardian. Many barons now left the French for the royal 
standard ; and two battles put an end to the hopes of Louis. 
The first, fought in May 12 17, in the streets of Lincoln, 
between the Earl of Pembroke and the French Count of 
Perche, was jestingly termed by the victorious Royalists " the 
Fair of Lincoln." The second was a sea-fight between the 
Justiciar Hubert de Burgh, and a noted pirate, Eustace the 
Monk, who was bringing a French fleet to the relief of Louis. 
Hubert, who held Dover Castle, could get together only 
forty sail, and his case seemed so desperate that several 
knights would not accompany him. But his courage was 
rewarded, for the English, fearlessly boarding the enemy's 
ships and cutting the rigging, gained an easy victory. After 
this Louis was glad to make peace and go home. Alexander 
King of Scots and the North-Welsh prince Llywelyn both 
acknowledged the young Sovereign, who now reigned un- 
disputed. 

2. Character of Henry. — At the age of twenty-nine, Henry 
married Eleanor, daughter of Count Raymond of Provence. 
She was beautiful and accomplished, but was greatly disliked 
on account of the favours lavished on her kindred. Henry 
himself preferred foreigners to his own countrymen, and this 
gave constant offence. Insolent and masterful in their pros- 
perity, the favourites met every complaint of the English 
with the reply, " We have nothing to do with the law of the 
land." Though the King had no positive vices, he was weak, 



62 HENRY III. [chap. 

vain, and ostentatiously liberal, and consequently always poor 
and greedy for money. On the birth of his first son Edwa?'d 
he sought after gifts with such eagerness, that a Norman 
said, "Heaven gave us this child, but the King sells him 
to us." The rich London citizens complained of the heavy 
tallages laid upon them. " Those ill-bred Londoners," as 
Henry once called them, were no friends of the Court, and 
their mutual dislike often broke out. One day the young 
men of the City were playing at the quintain, a game which 
exercised the man-at-arms in managing his horse and lance, 
when some of the royal attendants and pages insulted the 
citizens, calling them " scurvy clowns and soap-makers," and 
entered the lists to oppose them. The young Londoners had 
the satisfaction of beating their courtly antagonists " black 
and blue," but the City paid for it in a heavy fine imposed by 
the King. 

3. The Provisions of Oxford. — The greed of Rome was 
as much exclaimed against as that of the King ; for the 
Popes claimed the right to tax the clergy, upon whom they 
made almost yearly demands. They were further answerable 
for leading Henry into his most signal act of folly, by offering 
to his second son Edmund the crown of the Two Sicilies, 
or rather the empty title, for the actual kingdom could only 
be gained by war, the expenses of which Henry pledged 
England to repay. Aghast at finding how enormous was 
the sum to which they were committed, the Barons compelled 
Henry to agree that twenty-four persons should be chosen, 
half by him, half by themselves, to reform the government. 
These twenty-four drew up " the Provisions of Oxford" under 
which the royal authority was in fact placed in the hands of 
a council. But this government did not long work smoothly. 
They quarrelled among themselves, and Henry took advan- 
tage of this to try to get back his authority. 

4. The Barons' War. — This ended in a war between the 






THE BARONS' WAR. 63 



King and the Barons, the latter being headed by the most 
able man of their party, Simon of Moiitfort, a Frenchman 
who had become Earl of Leicester in right of his mother, 
had married the King's sister Eleanor, and had made himself 
a thorough Englishman. The Londoners sided with the Barons, 
and showed their dislike of the royal family in a manner which 
did them no credit. On the first breaking out of war, the 
Queen attempted to pass by water from the Tower to 
Windsor Castle ; but as soon as her barge approached the 
bridge, the Londoners assailed her with abuse, threw down 
mud upon her, and by preparing to sink her boat forced her 
to return. The battle of Lewes ; May 14, 1264, put an end for 
the time to the war. The action was begun by the King's 
eldest son Edward, who charged the Londoners in the baronial 
army with such vigour as to send them flying in utter rout ; 
but his eagerness to avenge his mother led him to chase 
them four miles, and while he was slaughtering fugitives, his 
own friends were defeated by Simon. Henry, whose bro- 
ther the King of the Romans was also captured, surrendered, 
and a treaty, the " Mise of Lewes" was concluded, under 
which his son was given as a hostage to the conquerors. 
Though orders and writs continued to run in the royal name, 
and the King was treated with respect, he became no better 
than a prisoner to Earl Simon. In vain the Papal legate, 
Guy Foulquois, threatened the Barons with excommunica- 
tion : as soon as the Bull containing the sentence arrived, 
the Dover men threw it into the sea. 

5. Earl Simon's Parliament.— The most famous act of 
Earl Simon during his rule was the bringing of the Great 
Council of the Realm, already called by the French name 
of Parliament, into its present form. Its materials indeed 
he found ready to his hand. The greater barons, the 
Lords or Peers, came, as they still do, in person ; and as 
the smaller tenants of the Crown or freeholders were too 



64 HENRY III. [chap. 

numerous to do likewise, a few of their number had occa- 
sionally been summoned to act in their name — so many- 
knights from each county. This was the origin of our county 
members, who still are called Knights of the Shire. The 
regular and continuous attendance of these knights began 
with Earl Simon ; but a House of knights alone would have 
been a poor representation of the whole people. Simon 
brought the towns also into the national assembly, making 
not only each county send two knights, but each city and 
borough send two of their citizens or burgesses. Thus was 
formed our House of Commons. 

6. Battle of Evesham. — Earl Simon " the Righteous" as 
he was now called, did not keep his power much longer. 
His sons gave offence by their haughtiness and ill-conduct, 
and one of the foremost of the Barons, Gilbert of Clare, Earl 
of Gloucester, entered into league with the Royalists. Hoping 
to bring about Edward's escape, his friends sent him a fleet 
horse, upon which, having craftily got leave from Simon for 
a race or trial of horses, he galloped away from his escort, 
bidding them farewell with sarcastic courtesy. Fortune now 
turned against the Earl of Leicester, whose last hope was de- 
stroyed by his son Simon allowing himself to be surprised 
by Edward and his army at Kenilworth. Edward then ad- 
vanced against the elder Simon at Evesham, Aug. 4, 1265, 
and, by displaying in his van the banners he had won at 
Kenilworth, deluded the Barons into taking the approach- 
ing force for friends. When the Royalist ensigns at length 
appeared, Simon exclaimed, " May God have mercy on our 
souls, for our bodies are theirs." King Henry, being forced 
to appear in the baronial ranks, ran no small risk, until the 
fall of his helmet revealed him to the too zealous friends who 
were attacking. Earl Simon, old as he was,- fought valiantly 
till he was overpowered by numbers. His body was brutally 
mangled by the Royalists, but some relics of the corpse 



xvi.] MAGNA CARTA. 65 

were buried by the friendly monks of Evesham ; and the 
clergy and people in general honoured him as a martyr. 
This victory restored Henry to power, although " the Dis- 
inherited" — that is, Simon's adherents and their sons, whose 
estates were all confiscated — kept up a fierce plundering 
warfare for two years longer. After a time they were 
allowed to redeem their estates, but the Montfort family and 
the Londoners were denied this advantage. Among the 
last to yield was Llywelyn, whose submission was soothed 
by the title of Prince of Wales. 

7. Death of Henry. — The land being now at peace, Edward 
and Edmund set off upon what proved to be the last Crusade; 
and during their absence King Henry died, Nov. 16, 1272. 
He was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had begun to 
rebuild; and ere his sepulchre was covered, the Earl of Glou- 
cester, laying his hand on the corpse, swore fealty to the 
absent Edward, who was at once proclaimed King. 

8. Magna Carta. — The Great Charter, with the omission of 
the provision against arbitrary levying of scutage and aid, and 
some other alterations, was thrice re-issued in this reign : first, 
on the accession of Henry ; secondly, after the departure of 
Louis, when a Charter of the Forest was added, which declared 
that no man should lose life or limb for taking the King's game ; 
thirdly, in 1225, being the condition upon which Henry 
obtained a grant of money from the national council. In 
this last form it was afterwards confirmed more than thirty 
times. The proverbial phrase, Nolumus leges A notice 
mutare, (We will not change the laws of England,) dates 
from this reign, it having been the answer of the earls and 
barons in council at Merton in 1236, when urged by the 
Bishops to bring the laws of inheritance into accordance 
with the rule of the Church. 

9. Gothic Architecture. — In the last years of the twelfth 
century arose the Pointed or Gothic style of architecture, 

F 



66 EDWARD I. [chap. 

which flourished until the revival of the classic orders in the 
sixteenth century. When it had gone out of fashion, and itb 
beauties were not appreciated, the name of Gothic, which had 
the sense of barbarous, was fixed upon it in scorn. It is 
also called pointed, because its leading feature is the pointed 
arch. Salisbury Cathedral is a good specimen of early 
Gothic ; and the Eleanor Crosses, and the nave of Yc rk 
Minster, of that which prevailed under the first three 
Edwards. The naves of Winchester and Canterbury Cathe- 
drals represent the form intermediate between York nave 
and the latest Gothic, of which the chapels of St. George at 
Windsor and of Henry VII. at Westminster are examples. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

EDWARD I. 

Edward T.; attempt to assassinate him; his character (i) — war with 
Prince Llywclyn ; death of Llywelyn and of David ; Wales uni'ed to 
England ; creation of the Prince of Wales (2) — competitors fr the 
Sottish crown; decision of Edward ; conquest of Scotland ," abdi- 
cation of Balliol ; stone of Scone (3) — William Wallace ; second 
conquest of Scotland ; murder of Corny n ; Bruce crowned King 
of Scots ; death of Edward (4) — family of Edward (5) — legisla- 
tion ; parliaments ; Confirmation the Charters ; parliamentary 
taxation (6) — expulsion of the jfezvs (7). 

1. Edward, First from the Norman Conquest, surnamed 
Longshanks, 1272-1307. — Edward, the first English prince 
after the Norman Conquest who was an Englishman at 
heart, was strong and tall, towering by head and shoulders 
above the crowd, a good horseman, a keen hunter, and noted 
for his skill in knightlv exercises. His credit as a Crusader 



xvil] CONQUEST OF WALES. 67 

was heightened by his having narrowly escaped with his life 
from the poisoned dagger of a Mohammedan assassin. The 
touching story that his wife, Eleanor of Castile, at her own 
peril sucked the venom from his wound, is but a romance ; 
for in truth Edward's fortitude was put to the test of having 
the poisoned flesh cut out. Besides being a gallant knight, 
he was a great statesman and ruler. Loving power, he was 
loth to give it up, but he knew when to yield ; and the chief 
fault with which he could be charged was a disposition to 
rely too much on the letter of the law. 

2. Conquest of Wales. — Early in his reign Edward had 
trouble with his vassal Llywelyn Prince of Wales, who, 
persistently evading the swearing of fealty, was at length 
declared a rebel, and was soon brought by force to submit. 
For some years Edward enjoyed his supremacy, though both 
prince and people longed to shake off the yoke. Resistance 
was first made by the very man from whom Edward could 
least have expected it, Dafydd or David, who had fought 
on the English side against his brother Llywelyn, and 
owed everything to Edward's bounty. He raised in 1282 
a formidable insurrection ; but after Llywelyn had fallen 
in a chance encounter with an English knight, the Welsh 
chieftains yielded, and David, being delivered up by his 
own countrymen, was executed, Sept. 20, 1283. Llywelyn's 
head, encircled with a wreath, was set over the Tower, in 
mockery of a prophecy that the Prince of Wales should be 
crowned in London. Wales was now united to England, 
and Edward did his best to conciliate his unwilling subjects. 
His son Edward was born April 25, 1284, in the castle of 
Caernarvon, and seventeen years later was created Prince of 
Wales, a title which has ever since been conferred on the 
Sovereign's eldest son. There is a legend that the King pro- 
mised to give the Welsh a native prince who could not speak 
a word of English, and that he then presented to them his 

F 2 



68 EDWARD I. [chap. 

infant son. Another story, that the King, finding that the 
native bards or poets kept alive the memories of the ancient 
glories of Wales, had them all massacred, is a fiction ; but it 
is worth recording for the sake of the splendid ode by Gray. 

3. Conquest of Scotland. — The Scots, under which name 
were now included both the Gaelic-speaking men of the 
Highlands and the English-speaking men of the Lowlands, 
were without a King ; the last of their old Celtic line of 
princes was dead, and there was a crowd of claimants to the 
throne. Of these the foremost were John Balliol and Robert 
Bruce, noblemen of Norman descent, holding lands both in 
England and Scotland. The English King was called in to 
decide, and met the Scottish estates at Norham, May 10, 
1 291. He began by demanding their acknowledgment of 
him as their feudal superior, and gave judgment in favour of 
Balliol, whose fealty and homage he received. But the new 
King and his barons, disliking their position as vassals, soon 
allied themselves with France, and went to war with Eng- 
land. In this they were worsted ; and Balliol being com- 
pelled to give up the crown in 1296, Edward took posses- 
sion of Scotland as a forfeit fief, received the homage of the 
Scottish parliament, and filled the highest offices in the 
country with Englishmen. He carried away the Scottish 
regalia, and with them a relic whose loss was deeply felt. 
At Scone there was a fragment of rock on which the Scots 
King was wont to be placed at his coronation. It had 
been, so legend said, the pillow of Jacob at Bethel ; and 
where that fated stone was, there the Scots should reign. 
The conqueror placed it, enclosed in a throne, in West- 
minster Abbey, where the stone and chair still remain, 
and upon them every King of England has since been 
crowned. 

4. Wallace and Bruce. — Edward was not a harsh con- 
queror, but English domination in any shape was hateful to 



XVii.] WALLACE AND BRUCE. 69 

the people of the Lowlands. William Wallace, who had 
made himself a name as the chief of a body of patriotic 
outlaws, defeated at Stirling Bridge Warren Earl of 
Surrey, who governed Scotland for Edward ; and after 
having ravaged Northumberland and Cumberland, he was 
made or made himself ruler of Scotland under the title 
of Guardian of the Kingdom. His fall was as rapid as 
his rise. Edward routed the insurgents at Falkirk, July 
22, 1298, and Wallace sank back into his outlaw's life. 
The Scottish nobles kept up the war some years longer, but 
were again obliged to yield. Wallace disdained to avail 
himself of the mercy then offered him, and being captured, 
was brought to London and hanged at Tyburn, Aug. 24, 
1305, winning by his death his place as the national hero of 
Scotland. What he had failed to achieve was brought about 
by Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grandson of that Bruce 
who had claimed the throne. Early in 1306, this young 
Bruce, in a church at Dumfries, stabbed John Comyn oj 
Badenoch, who was the representative of the rival house of 
Balliol. Then summoning the Scots to his standard, he was 
crowned King at Scone. Edward's deepest anger was roused 
by this sacrilegious murder, which he solemnly vowed to 
avenge. Being in feeble health, he could only move north- 
wards by easy stages, but he sent in advance his son, young 
Edward, who began so ruthlessly to waste the Scottish 
country that his father had to check his cruelty. Bruce, 
with his followers, was hunted about from place to place, but 
he gained some small success, sufficient to irritate Edward, 
who thereupon advanced from Carlisle as soon as he felt his 
health would permit. But the mere exertion of mounting 
his horse proved almost too much for him, and in the next 
four days he could only move six miles, reaching Burgh' 
on-the-Sands, where, within sight of Scotland, he died 
July 7, 1307. 



70 EDWARD I. [chap. 

5. Family of Edward. — Edward's first and dearly loved 
wife, Eleanor, died in 1290, in Lincolnshire, and wherever her 
corpse rested on its way to Westminster a cross was raised 
to her memory. Of Eleanor's four sons, three died in 
childhood ; the youngest, Edward, succeeded his father. The 
King's second wife was Margaret, sister of Philip IV., the 
Fair, of France. Her sons were Thomas of Brotherton, 
Earl of Norfolk, and Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent. 

6. Legislation. — Notwithstanding that Simon of Montfort 
had been Edward's foe, his system of representation became 
in the course of this reign firmly established ; and although 
changes have frequently been made in the details, the form of 
government, by King, Lords, and Commons, has, with one 
short break, been the same ever since. Edward and his 
parliaments made a number of useful laws ; but the chief 
reform of the reign was won much against the King's 
will and almost by force. Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, 
and Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, made a determined 
stand against the King's levying money and provisions on 
his sole authority, and obtained from him the Confirmation 
of the Charters, with the important addition that he 
should not impose taxes without "the common assent of 
the realm." 

7. Expulsion of the Jews. — The Jews were hateful to the 
people, both because they were not Christians, and because 
they were usurers. They alone could lend money on inte- 
rest, for the Scriptures were thought to forbid that practice 
to Christians, and thereby they made enormous profits. 
They were accused of horrible crimes, and were often sub- 
jected to great cruelties by the fierce and ignorant people 
among whom they lived ; but hated as they were, they yet 
grew rich under the protection of the Sovereign, whose 
slaves and chattels the law accounted them. As he could 
tax them at his pleasure, it was his interest to protect them 



xvin.] -EDWARD II 71 

and to give every encouragement to their trade. But at last, 
in 1290, Edward, being unable to withstand the popular feel- 
ing against them, after a vain attempt to convert them to 
Christianity, ordered them all, on pain of death, to quit the 
kingdom, allowing them however to carry away their money 
and goods. Harsh as this order was, it is fair to Edward to 
consider that by it he sacrificed a source of revenue to the 
wishes of his people. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

EDWARD II. 

Edward's last charge to his son; Piers Gaveston (1) — Marriage and 
coronation of Edward II; general enmity against Piers; the Or- 
dainers; death of Piers (2) — Battle of Bannockbum (3) — The Scots 
in Ireland^ — The Despensers ; execution of the Earl of Ian- 
caster (5) — Invasion of Isabel and Mortimer ; execution of the 
Despensers ; deposition of Edward. (6) — Murder of Edward (7) — 
Suppression of the Knights Templars (8). 

I. Edward II. of Caernarvon, 1307-1327. — The young 
King already had a favourite, Piers or Peter of Gavesto?i } son 
of a Gascon gentleman. Edward I. had chosen him to be 
his son's companion in boyhood — a choice he had cause to 
rue — for Piers led the Prince of Wales into wild and lawless 
courses, which the elder Edward tried in vain to restrain. 
Once indeed the old King sent his son to prison for breaking 
the park and destroying the deer of W alter of Langton, Bishop 
of Lichfield j and some months before his death Piers was 
banished. Among the injunctions laid upon his son by the 
dying Edward, one was that he should never recall Gaveston 
without consent of Parliament ; another was that he should 



72 EDWARD II. [chap. 

go on with the Scottish war. But his commands were set at 
nought. The new King soon gave up the Scottish expedi- 
tion and hastened to recall Piers, whom he loaded with 
riches and honours, and left as Regent during his own 
absence in France for his marriage. 

2. General Enmity against Gaveston. — At Boulogne, early 
in 1308, the King married Isabel, daughter of Philip the Fair 
of France. On his return he was met by the Regent and the 
English barons. The disgust of these latter was great when 
they saw the King, without noticing anyone else, throw him- 
self into his favourite's arms and call him brother. When at 
the coronation the place of honour was given to Piers, the 
irritation was increased, and three days later the Barons 
demanded his banishment. Edward, reluctantly yielding, 
appointed Piers to the government of Ireland, where he 
seems to have shown courage and ability. By assenting to 
a petition of the Commons for redress of grievances, the 
King obtained in return, not only a supply of money, but also 
their consent that Piers, whom he had again recalled, might 
remain with him, " provided he should demean himself pro- 
perly." Piers however was far from demeaning himself 
properly in the eyes of the nobles. When he was at court 
nothing went on but dancing, feasting, and merry-making ; 
and their feelings were further embittered by the contemp- 
tuous nicknames he bestowed. Discontent again showed 
itself, and in 13 10 Edward was obliged to give up the 
government for a year to a committee of peers. " The 
Ordainers" as they were called, drew up articles of reform, 
lessening the power of the Crown, and again banishing Piers. 
Edward, after complaining and entreating in vain, parted in 
tears with his favourite. But not a year had passed before 
Piers rejoined the King, upon which the Barons took up arms 
under T/iomas Earl of Lancaster, cousin to the King, and 
besieging Piers in Scarborough Castle obliged him to sur- 



xviii.] BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN. 73 

render. His death being determined on, he was beheaded 
on Blacklow Hill, near Warwick, June 19, 13 12. 

3. Battle of Bannockburn. — While Edward was wrangling 
with his Barons, Scotland was lost, the fortresses there falling 
one by one into the hands of Bruce. At last, in 13 14, Edward, 
with a splendid army, set out to save Stirling Castle, whose 
governor had agreed to surrender if not relieved before the 
Feast of St. John the Baptist. Almost the same story is told 
of this battle as of Hastings. The English, it is said, spent 
the vigil in revelry, shouting their old drinking cries of 
" Wassaile " and " Drink haile ; " the Scots kept it fasting. 
The battle took place on the morrow, June 24, at Bannock- 
bum, where the English were completely routed by Bruce's 
small force, Edward flying with a party of Scottish horse at 
his heels, and all his treasures and supplies falling into the 
hands of the victors. 

4. The Scots in Ireland. — Ireland was torn asunder between 
the English settlers and the native septs or clans, who were 
for ever making war upon each other and among themselves. 
O'Neill and other chiefs of Ulster, joined by the Lacys, a 
Norman-English family, now offered the Irish crown to 
Edward Bruce, brother of Robert. Edward came over witn 
an army to Ulster in 1315 ; and there gaining, together 
with his Irish allies, some victories, was crowned King- at 
Carrickfergus. But the Irish hopes were broken by the 
defeat of Athenree, Aug. 10, 1316 ; and two years later, 
Bruce fell in battle near Dundalk. 

5. The Despensers. — After a time, the King found a new 
favourite, Sir Hugh le Despoiser, upon whom he bestowed 
large estates. Both he and his father were soon as much a 
cause of strife as Piers had been, and the Barons again re- 
belled ; but the chief enemies of the Despensers, the Earls of 
Hereford and of Lancaster, were defeated at Boroughbridge, 
the former falling in the fight, and the latter being taken 



74 EDWARD II. [chap. 

there, and afterwards beheaded at Pontefract. Another 
leading man of the baronial party, Roger of Mortimer, 
Lord of Wigmore, was also condemned to death, but the 
sentence was changed to imprisonment. 

6. Deposition of Edward. — On divers pretexts Charles 
IV., King of France, quarrelled with Edward, who, having 
been persuaded that his wife would have influence with her 
brother, sent her in 1325 to France to negotiate for him, 
and allowed his young son, Edward Prince of Wales, to 
join her. Months passed without either mother or son 
returning, Isabel professing to have fears of Hugh De- 
spenser. At last, Sept. 24, 1326, she landed in Suffolk, 
but it was at the head of foreign soldiers and a number 
of exiles, among them Roger Mortimer, who had escaped 
from the Tower. So unpopular were the Despensers that the 
Queen was hailed as a deliverer ; while the King, after vainly 
appealing to the loyalty of the Londoners, fled to the Welsh 
marches. The elder Despenser, who commanded at Bristol, 
was soon forced to surrender to Isabel, and, though an old 
man of ninety, was barbarously executed. Edward was cap- 
tured in Glamorganshire, together with the younger De- 
spenser, .who, crowned with nettles, was hanged fifty feet high 
at Hereford. The King being carried prisoner to Kenil- 
worth, Parliament resolved that he was unworthy to reign, 
and that his eldest son should be King in his stead. The 
crowd that filled Westminster Hall shouted assent ; but 
Isabel feigned violent grief, and the Prince, touched, by 
her seeming sorrow, vowed that he would never take the 
crown against his fathers will. A resignation was there- 
fore obtained from Edward, who yielded with tears ; and 
the ceremony was closed by the steward of the household, 
Sir Thomas Blount, breaking his staff of office and de- 
claring all persons in the royal service discharged,, as was 
done at a King's death. 



xix.] SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLARS. 75 

7. Murder of Edward. — From Edward's deposition to his 
death was but a step. He was made over to the keeping of 
Sir John de Maltravers, who, to conceal his abode, moved 
him from castle to castle, and by insults and ill-usage strove 
to destroy his reason or his life. Finally he was placed in 
Berkeley Castle, where he was cruelly and secretly murdered, 
a deed which Mortimer afterwards confessed to have com- 
manded. 

8. Suppression of the Templars. — It was in the time of this 
King that Pope Clement V. suppressed throughout Europe 
the wealthy Order of the Knights Teinplars, soldier-monks 
who had done great service in the Holy Wars. The order 
therefore came to an end in England as elsewhere, and all 
its property was confiscated. Its London abode in Fleet 
Street, the Te7tiple, afterwards passed into the hands of two 
societies of lawyers, the Inner and Middle Temple, to whom 
it still belongs. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

EDWARD III. 

Edward III. ; Mortimer and the Queen ; claim upon Scotland ; fall 
of Mortimer (1) — claim upon the French crown; the Hundred 
Years' War; battles of Sluys and Crecy ; taking of Calais ; battle 
of NevilVs Cross (2)— the Black Death (3)— Battle of Poitiers (4)— 
Peace of Bretigny (5) — the Spanish Expedition; disaffection of 
Aquitaine ; losses of the English (6) — the good Parliament ; death 
of the Black Prince (7) — death of Edward (8) — Legislation (9) — 
. Commerce (10) — John Wycliffe (1 1). 

I. Edward III. of Windsor, 1327-1377. — As the new 
King was only fourteen, guardians were appointed to carry 



76 EDWARD III. [chap. 

on the government ; but the Queen and Mortimer contrived 
to get all power into their own hands. A treaty was 
made by them with Scotland, March 17, 1328, by which 
they were thought to have sacrificed the young King's 
rights, as they gave up the claim to feudal superiority. 
Mortimer, though hated by the nobles, believed himself 
to be secure, and so absurdly insolent was his conduct, 
that his own son called him " the King of Folly." But he 
had not reckoned upon an outburst of spirit on the part 
of Edward, who was now eighteen. The governor of Not- 
tingham Castle, where Mortimer was staying, let in, through 
an underground passage, a party of Edward's friends, who, 
headed by the King, burst at midnight into the favourite's 
chamber, and, regardless of the entreaties of Isabel, made 
him prisoner. The King, now his own master, called a par- 
liament, and Mortimer, being condemned by the peers, was 
hanged at Tyburn, Nov. 29, 1330. Isabel passed the rest of 
her life in ward at Castle Rising. 

2. The Hundred Years' War. — On the death in 1328 of 
Charles IV., Edward had put in a claim to the crown of 
France in right of his mother, but the French maintained 
that no right could pass through women, who by a custom 
supposed to be founded on the ancient "Salic Law " were 
shut out from the throne. Nothing however came of this 
claim until the actual King, Philip of Valois, by encroaching 
in Aquitaine, and by supporting the Scots in their hostilities, 
roused Edward into setting it up again, and entering upon 
the " Hundred Years' War," so called because though there 
was not constant fighting, there was no lasting peace during 
all that time. Edward at first formed foreign alliances, es- 
pecially with the Flemish cities, but afterwards made war 
alone. His first great victory was a sea-fight off Sluys, June 
24, 1 340, and after six years more of alternate war and truce, 
he gained the famous battle of Cricy, Aug. 26, 1346. The 



xix.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 77 

French far outnumbered the English, but they were undis- 
ciplined and ill led, and their Genoese crossbowmen gave 
way before the terrible volleys of the English archers. Still 
there was sharp fighting, and at one time Edward Prince of 
Wales, a lad of sixteen on his first campaign, was so sorely 
pressed that a knight was sent to his father to beg for rein- 
forcements. The King refused. " Let him win his spurs," 
he said (that is, prove himself worthy of knighthood) ; and 
gallantly they were won. It is said by an Italian writer of 
the time that Edward employed cannon or "bombards" in 
this action, and with good effect. Edward then proceeded 
to blockade by sea and land the town of Calais, which he 
starved into a surrender. The story goes that he would only 
spare the people, whom he hated as pirates, on condition 
that six principal burgesses, bareheaded, barefooted, and 
with halters about their necks, should give themselves up at 
discretion. Eustace of St. Pierre, the richest of the towns- 
men, volunteered to sacrifice himself, and his noble example 
was followed by five others. The King seemed determined to 
have their heads struck off, and only gave way when his wife, 
Philippa of Hainaidt, fell in tears at his feet, and begged 
their lives. The town, which Edward settled with a colony 
of his own people, remained for more than two centuries in 
English possession. A truce was now brought about by 
the Pope, Clement VI. During Edward's absence in France, 
the Scots, taking the opportunity of invading England, were 
defeated at NevilVs Cross, Oct. 12, 1346, and their King, 
David Bruce, made prisoner. Edward's foreign wars were 
in many respects needless and cruel, but they were not 
unpopular. The English learnt to think themselves born to 
conquer Frenchmen ; and the high rate of pay— for his 
armies were not feudal levies, but paid forces — the licence of 
plunder, and the profits made by ransoms, were a source of 
attraction to enterprising men in all ranks. 



78 EDWARD III. [chap. 

3. The Black Death. — In 1349 a fearful plague called 
" The Black Death" which swept over Europe, killed, so it 
is believed, more than half the inhabitants of England. 
Labourers, becoming thereby exceeding scarce, were enabled 
to command higher wages, though the King and Parliament 
vainly tried to force them, by the famous laws called the 
Statutes of Labourers, to work for their former hire, and 
forbade them to move from one county to another. 

4. Battle of Poitiers. — The French war was renewed in 1 355, 
the chief part being taken by young Edward, known as " the 
Black Prince" either from the colour of the armour he wore 
at Crecy, or from the terror with which the French regarded 
him. On the 19th of Sept., 1356, with a small army of Eng- 
lish and Gascons, he overthrew at Poitiers a great host led 
by the French King, John the Good. The enemy charged 
up a narrow lane, when the Prince's archers let fly from 
behind the hedges, and at once threw them into confusion. 
The King, fighting gallantly, was taken prisoner. With the 
courtesy of the time, the Prince himself waited upon his 
royal captive at supper the same evening ; and in the follow- 
ing spring, when they entered London, similar respect was 
paid to John's superior rank, he being mounted on a splen- 
didly caparisoned white charger, while his conqueror rode 
by his side on a black pony. 

5. Peace of Bretigny. — A peace was made at Bretigny, 
May 8, 1360, under which John was to ransom himself for 
three million gold crowns, and Edward gave up his claim to 
the throne of France, but kept his possessions in Aqui- 
taine, besides Calais and some other small districts, no 
longer as a vassal, but as an independent sovereign. 

6. The Spanish Expedition. — In 1367, the Black Prince, 
who ruled at Bordeaux as Prince of Aguitaine, took the part 
of Don Pedro or Peter the Cruel, the dethroned King of 
Castile, and won him back his kingdom by the victory of 



Xix.] THE GOOD PARLIAMENT. 79 

Navarrete. But the thankless Pedro broke his promise of 
repaying Edward's expenses, and the Prince returned to 
Bordeaux with his health ruined, his temper spoiled, and 
his treasury drained. Against all advice he levied a hearth- 
tax ; and as the English were already disliked because they 
were so proud that they set nothing by any nation but by 
their own, the Aquitanian nobles turned to the French King 
Charles V., and war broke out again. The Prince rallied his 
ebbing strength, but his last exploit — a general massacre 
of the townsfolk of Limoges, which he had retaken — has left 
a stain on his name. After this cruel deed, he returned to 
England. By 1374 hardly anything was left to the English 
in Aquitaine, excepting Bordeaux and Bayonne ; and, 
wearied with disasters, King Edward obtained a truce. 

7. The Good Parliament. — The King's third son, John 
Duke of Lancaster, called from his birthplace John of Ghent 
or Gaunt, now took the lead at home ; for the younger 
Edward was slowly dying, and the elder one had become 
old and feeble. Good Queen Philippa was dead, and one 
Alice Ferrers made use of the King's favour to interfere 
with the course of justice. The government was wasteful, 
and the men whom the Duke appointed unworthy of trust. 
Amid these evils, there met, in 1376, a parliament, gratefully 
remembered by the title of " the Good," which, supported by 
the Black Prince, boldly set itself to the work of reform. 
The Commons impeached, or accused before the Lords, 
several of the Duke's favourites, charging them with making 
illegal profits, and Alice Perrers was forbidden, under pain of 
banishment, to meddle in the law-courts. This is the more 
noteworthy as being the first instance of the Commons 
using this power of impeachment, or trying to interfere with 
the ministers of the Crown. On the 8th June, the Prince 
died ; and great was the mourning of the nation for him 
who had won them fame abroad, and striven with his last 



80 EDWARD III. [chap. 

strength to save them from misrule at home. He was buried 
in Canterbury Cathedral, where his helmet, shield, gauntlets, 
and surcoat embroidered with the arms of England and 
France, still hang above his tomb. John of Gaunt now had 
everything his own way ; the former favourites were recalled, 
and a new parliament was summoned, which undid all the 
good work of its predecessor. 

8. Death of Edward. — In his last moments at Shene, Edward 
was forsaken by all his servants and even by Alice Ferrers, 
after she had robbed him of the rings on his fingers. One priest 
alone came to the King's bedside, and Edward, in tears, re- 
ceiving a crucifix from him, kissed it and died, June 21st, 
1377. His sons were, Edward Prince of Wales, who mar- 
ried his cousin Joan, " the Fair Maid of Kent; " Lionel 
Duke of Clarence, whose only daughter married Edmund 
Mortimer, Earl of March; John Duke of Lancaster; Edmund 
of Langley, Duke of York; and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke 
of Gloucester. In this reign, St. Stephen's Chapel, West- 
minster, was finished. The King founded the order of 
Knights of the Garter, and rebuilt the greater part of 
Windsor Castle. His chief architect was William 0/ 
Wykeham, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Lord 
Chancellor. Wykeham, in the next reign, founded New 
College, Oxford, and also the College of Winchester, in 
which city he himself had been educated. 

9. Legislation. — In 1352 was passed the Statute of Trea- 
sons, which clearly stated what offences amounted to high 
treason. Much was done to restrain the power which 
the Popes exercised over the English Church and clergy, 
and the demand made in 1366 by Pope Urban for thirty- 
three years' arrears of John's tribute was absolutely refused. 

10. Commerce. — In 1331 Edward took advantage of dis- 
contents among the Flemish weavers to invite them over 
here, where they settled chiefly in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, 



xx.] RICHARD II. Si 

and brought in the finer manufactures of woollen cloths. The 
people were so jealous of these newcomers that Edward 
had no small trouble to protect them. The wool of England 
was at that time the finest in Europe, and was the chief 
article of export and source of revenue. 

ii. John Wycliffe.— About 1363 a doctor of Oxford, John 
Wycliffe, who was born near Richmond in Yorkshire, first 
came into notice by attacking the orders of Begging Friars. 
From assailing the abuses in the Church, he went on to 
question some of the received doctrines, and spread his 
views abroad by his writings. His great work was a trans- 
lation of the Bible. In the next reign, being forbidden to 
teach at Oxford, he retired to his rectory of Lutterworth, 
where he died peaceably in 1384 ; many years afterwards his 
bones were taken up and burnt as those of a heretic. His 
disciples were nicknamed Lollaj'ds. 



CHAPTER XX. 

RICHARD II. 

Richard of Bordeaux ; the peasant insurrection (i) — Government of 
Richard; fall of the Duke of Gloucester (2) — Henry of Lancaster ; 
his banishment and return in arms (3) — capture, abdication, and 
deposition of Richard ; Henry raised to the throne (4) — Statute cf 
Prccmunire (5) — Language (6) —Literature (7). 

I. Richard II. of Bordeaux, 1377-1399. The Peasant 
Insurrection of 1381. — Richard of Bordeaux, son of the 
Black Prince, became King at the age of eleven. His reign 
was troublous and unfortunate. Four years after he as- 
cended the throne, an insurrection broke out among the 
peasants. The yoke of villainage, which bore more hardly 

T G 



82 - RICHARD II. [chap. 

upon them than of old, and the growing ideas of liberty, 
fostered, as it was thought, by the teaching of the Lollards, 
tended to cause discontent, but it was the pressure of a poll- 
tax of three groats upon every person above fifteen years 
old, which brought about the actual outbreak. It began in 
Essex under the leading of a priest who took the name of 
Jack Straw. Kent soon followed ; the revolt there, according 
to the common story, being partly brought about by the tax- 
gatherer's insulting behaviour to a young girl of Dartford. 
Her father, a tyler by trade, killed the offender on the spot 
with a stroke of his hammer. The insurgents are said to 
have numbered 100,000 men by the time they reached 
Blackheath, where they were harangued upon the equality of 
mankind by a priest named John Ball, who took as his text 
the rime 

"When Adam delved, and Eve span, 
Who was then a gentleman 1" 

This rude army entered London, pulled down Newgate, 
letting the prisoners there loose, burnt John of Gaunt's 
palace of the Savoy, and the Temple, together with its books 
and records, and butchered all the Flemish artisans they could 
find ; but in their havoc, they allowed of no plunder for 
private profit. The great body of them, mostly Essex and 
Hertfordshire men, withdrew the next day, young Richard 
having granted their demands, chief of which was the 
abolition of villainage. But the fierce captain of the Kentish- 
men, Walter or " Wat" Tyler, remained in arms, and, 
leading his followers into the Tower, there seized and put to 
death six persons, amongst them the Archbishop and Chan- 
cellor Simon Sudbury. The next morning the Tyler and the 
King met in Smithfield. According to the usual account, 
Wat, during their parley, affected to play with his dagger, 
and at last laid his hand on Richard's rein, upon which the 
Mayor, Walworth, stabbed him. The insurgepts bent their 



xx.] GOVERNMENT OF RICHARD II. 83 

bows, but Richard boldly rode up to them, exclaiming that 
he himself would be their leader. They followed him to the 
fields at Islington, where a considerable force of citizens and 
others hastened to protect the King. Seeing this, the rioters 
fell on their knees, and, at Richard's bidding, returned to 
their homes. In the Eastern counties, the insurrection was 
put down by Henry Spenser, "the fighting Bishop of Nor- 
wich." About a fortnight later, Richard, who indeed could 
not legally abolish villainage without consent of the Lords 
and Commons, revoked the charters he had granted ; and 
throughout the country great numbers of the rioters were 
tried and executed. 

2. Government of Richard. — Richard was noted for his 
beauty ; but otherwise there was not much to be said in his 
favour. The hopes raised by the spirit with which, when a 
mere lad, he had confronted the Kentishmen, were dis- 
appointed. He was wasteful, dissipated, frivolously fond of 
shows and pageants, and proud and violent in temper. 
He allowed himself to be led by favourites who were hated 
as upstarts, while he mistrusted his uncles who had kept him 
in tutelage as long as they could. In 1387 the party against 
the King, which was headed by his youngest uncle Thomas 
Duke of Gloucester, got the upper hand ; when exile or death 
became the lot of Richard's friends. The King never forgave 
those who took part in these doings. Gloucester however 
was soon turned out of office, and* for nine years Richard 
governed well. His first wife, u the" Good Queen Anne" of 
Bohemia, who seems to have been inclined towards the 
doctrines of Wycliffe, and who was beloved both by her 
husband and by the nation, died in 1394. Two years later he 
married a child of eight years old, Isabel, daughter of Charles 
VI. of France. This step was unpopular, as the English 
had no wish to be friends with France ; but Richard desired 
to secure a long truce from the war with that country, 
G 2 



84 RICHARD II. [chap. 

The next year, 1397, by a bold stroke of treachery, he had 
his uncle Gloucester seized and hurried off to Calais. The 
governor of that town soon made report that the ' Duke 
was dead — secretly murdered, as most thought. By this 
sudden action Richard struck terror into the Gloucester 
party, and no one venturing to resist him, he in fact became 
absolute. 

3. Henry of Lancaster. — Of the noblemen who had given 
the King such dire offence in 1387, two only remained — 
Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and Henry of Bolingbroke, 
Duke of Hereford, son of John of Gaunt. In 1398, Hereford 
accused Norfolk of having spoken slanderously of the King; 
and Norfolk denying the charge, the matter was to be decided 
at Coventry by trial of battle. But just as accuser and ac- 
cused, armed and mounted, were about to set upon each 
other, Richard stopped the fight, and rid himself of both com- 
batants by banishing Hereford for ten years, and Norfolk for 
life. When they were gone, he threw all moderation aside. 
John of Gaunt did not survive his son's exile many months, 
and his estates, which should have passed to Hereford, were 
seized by the King. Hereford — Duke of Lancaster as he 
now was — took advantage of Richard's absence on an ex- 
pedition to Ireland, to return to England. In company 
with Archbishop Arundel, one of the exiles of the Gloucester 
party, he landed, July 4, 1399, with a few men-at-arms at 
Ravenspurne, then a seaport on the H umber, but which has 
now long been swallowed by the waves. He was at once 
joined by the great northern family of Percy; and his few 
followers soon swelled to 60,000 men ; while the King's uncle, 
Edmund Duke of York, who acted as Regent, instead of 
attacking him, ended by espousing his cause. 

4. Deposition of Richard. — Owing to contrary winds, 
Richard heard nothing from England till a fortnight after 
Henry of Lancaster's landing ; and when the news arrived 



xx.] STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE. 85 

he still lingered, irresolute, in Ireland. At last he landed in 
"Wales, but his troops fell off from him ; he was deluded into 
leaving his place of refuge, Conway, by the treachery of 
Percy Earl of Northumberland, who then led him prisoner 
to Flint Castle, where he was handed over to Henry. He 
was brought to London, and there formally resigned the 
crown. The next day, Sept. 30, the Lords and Commons 
met, and voted his deposition on the ground of misgovern- 
ment. Upon this Henry of Lancaster rose, and claimed the 
crown, as being a descendant of Henry III., and as — so he 
hinted rather than plainly said — actual master of the realm, 
which had been near its ruin through bad government. 
Archbishop Arundel then led him to the throne, on which 
he was placed amid the shouts of the people who filled West- 
minster Hall. 

/ 5. Statute of Praemunire. — In 1393 was passed what is 
commonly called the Statute of Praemunire, which enacted 
that whoever should procure from Rome or elsewhere, ex- 
communications, bulls or other things against the King and 
his realm, should be put out of the King's protection, and all 
his lands and goods forfeited. The name of prcsmunire, 
which was only the first word of the Latin writ by which a 
man was summoned before the King to answer a charge of 
contempt against him, was commonly given to the offence of 
attempting to introduce a foreign jurisdiction. 

6. Language.— From the twelfth century to the reign of 
Edward III., we may reckon three written languages in use 
in England : — Latin, common to the clergy and the learned 
throughout Western Christendom ; French, the tongue of 
the nobles and the gentry ; and English, of the people. 
This last, the native speech, underwent great changes. The 
Old-English, which is now like a foreign tongue to us, ceased 
to be written or spoken accurately, and fast broke up. In 
John's reign, French, such as is still current in the 



86 RICHARD II. [chap. 

Channel Islands, began to be used instead of Latin as 
the language of public business ; and to this day the royal 
assent to bills is announced in parliament in the French 
words Le Roi or La Reine le vent j that is, the King, or the 
Queen, wills it. The descendants of the Normans, even 
after they had grown into Englishmen in heart, kept up their 
ancestors' speech in addition to that of the country. Being 
a mark of gentility, everybody aspired to some acquaintance 
with the fashionable jargon, which grew so corrupt that out 
of England it would hardly have passed for French. The 
fashion spread till it became laughable ; and meanwhile 
a new form of English, largely infused with French, was 
gradually gaining Court favour. By .the middle of the reign 
of Edward III. the rage for the foreign speech had died out, 
and in 1362 the use of the English tongue was established 
in the courts of law. The common phrase of " King's 
English" probably originally meant the standard language 
of proclamations, charters, and so forth, by contrast with the 
various dialects of rural districts. 

7. Literature. — The historians, being monks and clergy- 
men, chiefly wrote in Latin. Among the best known of this 
class is William, the monk of Malmesbury, patronized by 
that Earl of Gloucester who figures in the wars of Matilda. 
To the same nobleman was-dedicated the History of the 
Britons, by a Welsh monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth. This 
was a collection of Welsh and Breton legends, written 
with an air of historic gravity ; and the author got the 
nickname of "Arthur" from his glorifying the British Prince 
of that name. Geoffrey furnished the groundwork for me- 
trical romances in French and English, and his hero still 
keeps his place in poetry and fairy-tale. Among thirteenth- 
century writers, Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, who 
wrote the history of his own time, is remarkable for the bold- 
ness with which he expresses the national grievances. Pre- 



xx.] LITERATURE. 8; 



eminent among scholars of that age is Roger Bacon, who, 
after having studied at the universities of Oxford and Paris, 
became a Franciscan or Grey Friar. He was England's first 
experimental philosopher, and long afterwards, when his real 
merit was forgotten, he was remembered by tradition as a 
wizard. The last of the Old-English Chroniclers broke off 
in 1 1 54, the year of Stephen's death. There were English 
writings in the thirteenth century — political songs, romances, 
rimed chronicles, devotional works — which are known to 
students, but it is not till the next century that we meet with 
any famous names. Among these is Sir John Mandeville, 
held to be the father of English prose, who travelled in 
Tartary, Persia, Palestine, and other lands, and wrote an 
account, dedicated to Edward III., of his journeyings. He 
tells so many absurd marvels that he has got a character 
for falsehood ; but it seems that what he set down of his 
own knowledge was true, and that his wild tales were Church 
legends or reports made by others. Langland was the 
author of a long poem, known as the Vision of Piers Ploiv- 
?nan, — a religious allegory, which is valuable for its details 
of the everyday life of the people. But the chief poets of 
the age were Geoffrey Chaucer and fohn Gower, who both 
were influenced by the revival of learning in Italy and by 
the poets of that nation, and both wrote the new-formed 
English of the Court, which became the national standard 
language. Chaucer, who in genius was far above his friend 
Gower, belonged to the King's household, was patronized 
by John of Gaunt, and sat in Parliament as one of the 
members for Kent. He died at Westminster, about a year 
after Henry IV. came to the throne. His great poem is the 
unfinished " Canterbury Tales" a series of stories supposed 
to be told by a party of pilgrims of various rank and 
callings, on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas of 
Canterbury. 



88 HENR Y IV. [chap. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

HENRY IV. 

Henry IV. ; the Earl of March (i) — end of Richard (2) — revolt of 
Wales under Owen Glendower (3) — Rebellion of the Percies ; battle 
of Shrewsbury (4) — story of the Prince of Wales and the Chief 
Justice (5) — death of Henry (6); statute against heretics; the 
Lollard martyrs (7). 

1. House of Lancaster. Henry IV. of Bolingbroke, 1399- 
1413. — Henry was in fact an elected King, but, as has been 
seen, he put forward a claim of right which he rested 
partly on his birth. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, 
descended from Lionel Duke of Clarence, elder brother of 
John of Gaunt, was nearer to the throne according to the 
rule of hereditary succession, but he was a mere child, and 
Henry was satisfied with keeping this possible rival in 
honourable confinement at Windsor. 

2. End of Richard. — By the advice of the Lords, the unfor- 
tunate Richard was consigned to secret and perpetual im- 
prisonment ; and so secret was it that even the place of his 
captivity was concealed. But about six months after Henry's 
accession, Richard's dead body was brought from Pontefract 
Castle to London, where it was shown publicly in St. Paul's, 
and then buried at Langley. Divers rumours were soon cur- 
rent. Some said that he had been killed in prison by Sir 
Piers Exton and seven other murderers ; a more general 
belief was that he had died of starvation, either compulsory 
or voluntary. But the tale which gave Henry the most 
trouble was that the body shown was that of another, and that 
Richard was alive in Scotland. 



xxi.] REBELLION OF THE PERCIES. 89 

3. Owen Glendower. — Henry had scarcely reigned a year 
before the Welsh, by whom King Richard had been beloved, 
were in arms. They found a leader in Owain Glyndwr or 
Owen Glendower, a gentleman of Merionethshire, who traced 
his descent from the last Llywelyn Prince of Wales, and 
who had been esquire to King Richard. He soon made 
himself a terror to the English, and, as his fame spread, the 
W 7 elsh scholars from the Universities, and the Welsh 
labourers employed in England, nocked to join the insurgent 
chief, against whom Henry led his armies in vain. 

4. Rebellion of the Percies. — Henry's most powerful 
friends were the Percies — the Earl of Northumberland, his 
brother, the Earl of Worcester, and his son, Sir Henry— the 
last being a thorough "marchman," who had spent his life 
in foray and battle against the Scots, by whom he was nick- 
named "Hotspur" He and his father, on Sept. 14th, 1402, 
won the battle of Homildon Hill against the invading Scots. 
But the Percies became discontented, chiefly because the 
King would not, or rather could not, repay them what they 
had spent in warfare. Moreover he refused to permit Sir 
Edmund Mortimer to be ransomed from Glendower, to whom 
he was captive. Mortimer was Hotspur's brother-in-law, but 
he was also uncle to the young Earl of March, and Henry 
was therefore glad to have him out of the way. Being thus 
offended, Mortimer and the Percies, with the Scottish Earl 
Douglas, joined Glendower in an enterprise to win the crown 
for Richard, if alive, or else for the Earl of M arch. So little did 
Henry suspect the Percies that he was actually on his way to 
join them in an expedition against the Scots, when he learned 
that Hotspur and Worcester were in arms for King Richard. 
Hurrying westward, he fought an obstinate and bloody battle 
with them on Hateley Eield near Shrewsbury, July 23, 1403, 
when Hotspur fell, pierced by a shaft in the brain, and his 
followers fled ; Worcester was taken, and paid for his rebel- 



HENR Y IV. [chap. 



lion with his life. The crafty Northumberland, who had not 
been present, protested that his son had acted in disobedi- 
ence to him, and came off unpunished. He was afterwards 
concerned in a northern revolt in 1405, for taking part in 
which Scrope Archbishop of York lost his head ; while the 
Earl escaped, to be killed in a third rebellion. The power 
of Glendower, who at times received aid from the French, 
was gradually broken by Henry Prince of Wales; but he 
never made any submission. 

5. The Prince of Wales. — Tradition represents the 
Prince of Wales, when not engaged in war, as leading a wild 
life among dissolute companions. But he was so constantly 
employed, and so highly praised in Parliament, that we may 
suppose some early freak to have been exaggerated. There 
is a story about him, not told till a century and a half after 
his death, but yet too famous to be omitted. One of his ser- 
vants, it is said, was arraigned for felony before the Chief 
Justice. Young Henry imperiously demanded the man's 
release, and, enraged by refusal, made as if he would do 
some violence to the judge, who thereupon ordered him to 
the prison of the King's Bench for contempt. The Prince 
had the good sense to lay aside his weapon and submit to 
the punishment. His father, on hearing of it, expressed his 
gratitude to Heaven for giving him a judge who feared not 
to minister justice, and a son who could obey it. The Prince 
was in fact so popular, that one time the King stood in fear 
of being superseded by him, until re-assured by his frank and 
filial behaviour. 

6. Death of Henry. — Though only forty-seven years old, 
King Henry was breaking down in health. His conscience, 
we are told, was uneasy as to the manner in which he had 
come by the crown ; and he meditated going on a crusade ; 
but while praying at St. Edward's shrine in Westminster, he 
was seized with a fit. His attendants carried him into a 



xxi.] ST A TUTE A GAINST HERE TICS. 9 1 

chamber of the Abbot's, called " Jerusalem" which remains 
at this day, and laid him on a pallet near the fire. Coming 
to himself, he asked where he was ; and being told, he said 
that he knew he should die there, for it had been prophesied 
to him that he would depart this life in Jerusalem. He 
lingered there a few days, and died, March 20, 1413. By his 
first wife, Mary de Bohun, he had four sons : Henry Prince 
of Wales j Thomas Duke of Clarence j John Duke of Bed- 
ford; and Humfrey Duke of Gloucester. His second wife 
was Joan of Navarre. 

7, Statute against Heretics. — As Archbishop Arundel had 
supported Henry, Henry in return lent himself to destroy 
the Lollards. By a statute passed in 1401, persons con- 
victed by the diocesan of heretical opinions, if they refused 
to abjure, or, after abjuration, relapsed, were to be made 
over to the secular authorities to be burned. The first 
Wycliffite martyr was a clergyman, William Saulree, burned 
Feb. 12, 1 40 1. For some time the Commons went along 
with the King ; but they were jealous of the ecclesiastical 
power, and, so far as a desire to. relieve themselves from 
taxation by throwing the burthen upon the wealth of the 
Church was concerned, they were all Lollards. As their 
feeling against the higher clergy grew stronger, they de- 
manded a mitigation of the statute for burning ; to which 
Henry answered that it ought rather to be made more severe. 
In the midst of these disputes, a poor tailor, John Badbee, 
was picked out for the second victim, and burned in Smith- 
field ; the Prince of Wales, who was present, vainly en- 
deavouring to shake the Lollard's constancy by the offer of 
life and a yearly pension. 



92 HENRY V. [chap. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

HENRY V. 

Henry V. (i) — Lord Cobham (2) — cottspiracy of Cambridge, Scrope, 
and Grey; renewal of the war with France; battle of Azin- 
court (3) — Treaty of Troyes (4) — Third invasion • and death 
of Henry ; marriage of his widow (5) — The Navy (6) — Whit- 
tington (7). 

1. Henry V., of Monmouth, 1413-1422. — Whatever had 
been the previous life of Henry of Monmouth, it is certain 
that as King he was a man of almost austere piety. As an 
act of justice, he set free the young Earl of March ; after 
some time he restored the son of Hotspur to the lands and 
honours of the Perries ; and he had the body of King 
Richard II. removed and buried in Westminster Abbey. 

2. Lord Cobham. — The alarm created by the Lollards was 
increasing. Among them were numbered, not only those 
who did not believe the generally received doctrines, but the 
discontented and revolutionary also, and they uttered threaten- 
ing vaunts as to their number and power. Their chief 
leader, under whose patronage unlicensed preachers spread 
over the country, was Sir JoJui Oldcastle, called Lord Cob- 
ham. Being adjudged a heretic, he was sent to the Tower, 
from whence he escaped, and became a terror to the Govern- 
ment, which dreaded a Lollard rising under such a leader — 
for he was a tried soldier. There was some mysterious mid- 
night meeting of Lollards, which was dispersed by the King, 
and in which Cobham was said to be concerned. After this, 
he lay hid for a few years ; but being then discovered, he was 
put to death as a traitor and a heretic. Whether he was a 



xxil] BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. 93 

loyal subject hunted down by the priesthood, or a traitor and 
a revolutionist who aimed at being president of a Lollard 
commonwealth, remains a matter of dispute. 

3. Renewal of the Hundred Years' War. — Since the time 
of the last Edward there had been sometimes truce and 
sometimes war with France, but never a peace. Henry now 
resolved on an attempt to recover "his inheritance," the 
time being favourable, as the French King, Charles VI., was 
insane, and the country was torn asunder between rival fac- 
tions. Henry was actually about to embark when discovery 
was made of a plot, in which the conspirators were his 
cousin, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Lord Scrope of Masham, 
and Sir Thomas Grey of Hetou. All three were executed — 
an unpromising beginning of an expedition. However, 
Henry set sail, and landing, Aug. 13, 141 5, near Harfcur, 
laid siege to the place, which yielded to his artillery and 
mines in five weeks. As his army was thinned by disease, 
his advisers now urged him to return ; but, confident in what 
he believed to be the righteousness of his cause and relying 
upon Heaven, he took instead the hazardous resolution of 
marching to Calais. On the plain of Azincourt in Picardy, 
he was confronted by the French army. The English, who 
had suffered much from bad weather and scanty fare, betook 
themselves at night to confession and reception of the sacra- 
ment ; meanwhile the French knights, if we may believe 
the English legend, played at dice for the ransoms of their 
expected prisoners. The battle was fought the next day, 
Oct. 25. The French were thrown into confusion by Henry's 
archers, and, though they fought bravely, their fine army, 
reckoned at from six to ten times the number of the English, 
was cut to pieces. When the day was nearly won, a false 
alarm was raised that the French were coming upon the 
rear, upon which Henry hastily ordered his soldiers to kill 
their prisoners, lest they should aid the enemy. The mas- 



94 HENRY V. [chap. 

sacre, however, was stopped as soon as the danger had 
passed away. After the victory, Henry sailed from Calais to 
Dover, and, with his chief captives in his train, made a trium- 
phant entry into London, amid gorgeous shows and pageants. 
He himself observed a studied simplicity in dress and bear- 
ing, and, it is said, refused to allow his helmet, dinted with 
many blows, to be carried before him. 

4. Treaty of Troyes. — In July 141 7, Henry again invaded 
Normandy, and won fortress after fortress, while the French 
were occupied with quarrels among themselves. Rouen, 
after a gallant defence, surrendered, and there Henry built 
a palace and held his court. At last the French Queen, 
and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who had the King 
in their keeping, made at Troyes, May 21, 1420, a treaty with 
the English invader, by which he obtained the hand of the 
King's daughter Katharine, the regency of the kingdom, and 
the succession after Charles' death to the crown, which was 
to be for ever united with that of England. But as the 
French King's eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, who was 
thus disinherited, of course did not acknowledge this treaty, 
war was still carried on with him and his friends. 

5. Death of Henry. — Henry now returned to England 
with his. new-made Queen ; but ere long he was recalled to 
France by the defeat and death of his brother the Duke of 
Clarence, in battle with the Dauphin's men and' their Scot- 
tish auxiliaries. On this campaign Henry carried with him 
young King James I. .of Scotland, who sixteen years ago 
had been unjustly made prisoner by Henry IV., and his pre- 
sence served as an excuse for executing as a traitor every 
captured Scot. By the taking of Meaux, Henry became 
actual master of the greater part of France north of the 
Loire ; but his career was now run. He sickened, and died 
at Vincennes, Aug. 31, 1422, maintaining to the end his 
wonted composure. When during his last hours the minis- 



xxii.] DEATH OF HENRY V. 95 

ters of religion around his bed were reciting the penitential 
psalms, he interrupted them at the words " Thou shalt 
build up the walls of Jerusalem," and said that he had 
intended, after effecting peace in France, to go to Jerusalem 
and free the Holy City. This was no mere death-bed reso- 
lution. Henry had really meditated a Crusade, and had sent 
out a Burgundian knight, Gilbert de Lannoy, to survey the 
coasts and defences of Egypt and Syria. This survey was 
completed and reported just after the King's untimely death. 
Henry's own people, and especially his soldiers, well-nigh 
worshipped him. His funeral procession from Paris and 
Rouen to Calais, and from Dover to London and West- 
minster, was more sumptuous than that of any King before 
him. The sacred relics were removed from the eastern end 
of the Confessor's chapel in Westminster Abbey to make 
room for his tomb, which was honoured almost as that of a 
saint. Above the tomb there still hang his saddle and his 
helmet. Henry left one son, an infant only a few months 
old, who bore his name. His widow Katharine afterwards 
made an ill-assorted match with one of her attendants, a 
Welsh gentleman called Owen Tudor — the origin of the 
Tudor line. 

6. The Navy. — The honour of founding a royal navy is 
claimed for Henry V. Hitherto the King had depended for 
his fleet upon ships furnished by the Cinque Ports and other 
maritime towns, or those pressed from his subjects, or hired 
from foreigners ; but Henry in addition built large vessels 
of his own. 

7. Richard Whittington. — To this period belonged "the 
flower of merchants," Richard Whittington, thrice Lord 
Mayor of London — first under Richard II., then under Henry 
IV., and again under Henry V. The familiar tale of 
Whittington and his Cat is an old legend ; but what, if any, 
foundation there was for it, is not known. Whittington at 



96 HENRY VI. [chap. 

any rate had a real existence ; he advanced large sums to 
Henry V. for his wars, and was a benefactor to the City of 
London. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

HENRY VI. 

Henry VI; the Maid of Orleans (i) — strife among the nobles; 
Henry's marriage ; murder of Suffolk (2) — Jack Cade's rebellion 
(3) — Wars of the Roses; succession of the Duke of York; his 
death ; Edzaard of York raised to the th?'one (4). 

1. Henry VI. of Windsor, 1422-1461. — By the deaths of 
Henry V. and Charles VI. within two months of each other, 
the infant He my of Windsor became King of England and 
France ; though in the latter country there was a rival King, 
the Dauphin, who reigned at Bourges as Charles VII., and 
kept up the war with John Duke of Bedford, who was Regent 
of France for his nephew. In 1428 the English began the 
siege of Orleans, and its fall, which would lay Charles' 
provinces open to them, seemed at hand, when France was 
delivered as by a miracle. From Domremy a peasant girl of 
sixteen, Joan of Arc by name, came to Charles, declaring 
herself sent by Heaven to conduct him to Rheims for his 
coronation. Rheims, the crowning-place of the French 
Kings, was then in the English power. Mounted and armed 
like a knight, Joan led' the Dauphin's army to Orleans, where 
she raised the siege ; and thenceforth the stout English 
soldiers quailed before the " Maid of Orleans." Her mission 
in their eyes was not from Heaven, but from hell, and for that 
they feared her all the more. Fresh successes increased 
her reputation : Lord Talbot, one of the best of the English 



xxui.] THE MAID OF ORLEANS. g? 

captains, encountered her, June 18, 1429, at Patay, where 
he was defeated and taken prisoner. As she had promised, 
Charles VII. was crowned at Rheims. But in the next 
year, while heading a sally from Compiegne, she was taken 
prisoner by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English, 
Charles never so much as offering to ransom her. The 
English council delivered her to be tried at Rouen by 
Cauchon Bishop of Beauvais, and French churchmen lent 
themselves to her destruction. Condemned as a heretic, the 
heroic maid was burned alive at Rouen, May 30, 1431, a 
victim to the ingratitude of her friends and the brutality of 
her foes. But she had awakened the spirit of France, and 
the English began to lose ground. Bedford died in 1435, 
and gradually both the inheritance of Henry II. and the sub- 
sequent conquests were lost past recovery. In 1452 the 
people of Aquitaine, and especially those of Bordeaux, 
which had capitulated to Charles in the previous year, 
sought to return to the milder government of England, 
but the veteran Talbot, now Earl of Shrewsbury, who was 
sent to their aid, was overthrown and killed at Chatillon, 
1453, and Bordeaux was forced again to surrender to the 
French. To England nothing was left but Calais and a 
barren title, and thus ended the Hundred Years' War. 

2. Government in England. — Meanwhile in England there 
had been nothing but jealousies and struggles among the 
great men. In the first place Henry's uncle, Humfrey Duke 
of Gloucester, called " the Good" who was Protector during 
the King's early childhood, strove for the mastery with Beau- 
fort, Bishop of Winchester, and afterwards Cardinal. Henry 
himself, gentle and of weak intellect, had no more authority 
as a man than he had had as a child, and after his marriage 
in 1445, his wife Margaret and her favourite counsellor, 
William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, had the chief power. 
Margaret was the daughter of Rene of Anjou, nominal 

T H 



98 HENRY VL [chap. 

King of Sicily, to whom, amidst much murmuring, Anjou 
and Maine, then held by the English, were given up. 
Suffolk, disliked as the negotiator of this match, was also 
popularly believed to have caused the death of Gloucester, 
which took place in 1447 ; but when loss after loss befell 
the English in France, the indignation against the minister 
who thus misconducted affairs rose to fury. To satisfy 
the House of Commons the King, in 1450, sentenced him 
to five years' banishment ; but his enemies would not let 
him escape so easily. On his passage to Calais he was inter- 
cepted by a vessel of the English navy, and his head 
struck off. 

3. Jack Cade. — The murder of Suffolk was followed by a 
formidable insurrection of the people of Kent under one 
John or Jack Cade, who called himself by the more 
dignified name of John Mortimer. They encamped on 
Blackheath to the number of 20,000, and from thence sent to 
the King a statement of their grievances — the maladminis- 
tration of the government, the evil counsellors of the King, 
the oppressive action of the Statutes of Labourers, the 
extortions of the sheriffs and tax-gatherers, and the in- 
terference of the lords in county elections. Sir Humfrey 
Stafford being sent against the insurgents, was defeated and 
slain ; after which, the Kentish captain entered London 
unresisted. Gallantly arrayed like a lord or knight, he rode 
through the streets to Lo?idon-stone, which he struck with his 
sword, saying, " Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Getting 
Lord Saye and Se/e, one of the King's most obnoxious min- 
isters, into his power, he had him beheaded in Cheapside. 
Saye's son-in-law, Cromer, sheriff of Kent, who was accused 
of extortion, underwent the same fate. The plundering of 
some houses turned the citizens against Cade, and with the 
aid of soldiers from the Tower they defended London Bridge 
against him. After a six hours' conflict, most of his followers 



xxiii.] WARS OF THE ROSES. 99 

dispersed on the consent of the Council to admit their com- 
plaints, which had before been refused, and upon promise 
of pardon. Cade soon after fled, and being hotly pursued 
by Iden, sheriff of Kent, was either killed on the spot or 
mortally wounded. 

4. The Wars of York and Lancaster, or of the Roses. — 
The nobles, long accustomed to enrich themselves. at the ex- 
pense of France, and not disposed to retrench their living, 
found England, to which they were now confined, too small 
for them, and struggled among themselves for supremacy. 
The Dukes of York and of Somerset headed the rival factions. 
Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the representative of 
an illegitimate branch of the House of Lancaster, and sus- 
pected of pretensions to the throne, was the favourite at 
Court, but the loss of Normandy being laid to his charge, he 
was disliked by the people. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of 
York, who inherited the claims of the House of Clarence 
upon the crown, had commanded both in France and Ireland, 
and was highly thought of. In 1454 the King having become 
imbecile, the Parliament made York Protector ; but within 
a year Henry recovered the small faculties with which 
nature had endowed him, and Somerset was again in the 
ascendant. York then took up arms, and overthrew and 
killed his rival in the battle of St. Albans, May 23, 1455. 
There was a hollow peace for a time, but in 1459 civil strife 
again broke out. These contests are called the Wars of the 
Roses, because the badge of the House of Lancaster was a 
red rose, and that of the House of York a white -one. On 
the 10th July, 1460, the Yorkist party gained a complete 
victory at Northampton, Henry being captured, and the 
Queen and her son flying to Scotland. In the autumn a 
Parliament met, in which York claimed the crown. The 
matter was settled by a compromise. Henry was to reign 
for his life, and Richard of York to succeed him, Henry's 
% H 2 



EDWARD IV [chap. 



only son Edward being thus set aside. But many nobles 
still upheld the interests of the young Prince, and York, with 
inferior forces, encountering the Lancastrians near Wake- 
held, was completely defeated. York either fell in the 
fight or was beheaded immediately after ; and with him 
perished his son Edmund Earl of Rutland, a youth of 
seventeen, who, according to some, was killed in cold blood 
by Lord Clifford. Many other prisoners were executed, and 
York's head, encircled with a paper crown, was set on the walls 
of the city from which he took his title. His death however 
was soon avenged in the bloody fight of Mortimer's Cross, 
Herefordshire, by his eldest son Edward, now Duke of York, 
who followed up his victory by a like course of executions. 
Margaret, meanwhile, who had joined her friends, advanced 
upon London, defeating on the way in the second battle 
of St. Albans a leading Yorkist, Richard Neville, Earl of 
Warwick, and rescuing the King, whom the flying Yorkists 
left behind them. But her army, largely composed of Border 
plunderers, wasted its time in pillaging ; and Edward, joining 
Warwick, boldly marched into London, where in an assem- 
bly of peers, prelates, and citizens, he was declared King, 
March 3, 1461. Thus ended the reign, though not the life, 
of the unfortunate Henry, who is to be remembered as the 
founder of Eton College, and of King's College, Cambridge. 
His wife was the first foundress of Queen's College in that 
University. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

EDWARD IV. 

Edivard IV.; battle of Toivton (1) — efforts of Margaret ; depression 
of the Lancastrians (2) — marriage of Edward ; Clarence and 
Warwick change sides ; restoration of Henry ; return of Edward ; 



xxiv.] THE LANCASTRIANS. 101 

battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury ; death of Henry VI. ; Richard 
Duke of Gloucester (3) — Invasion of France (4) — death of Cla- 
rence ; death of Edward (5). 

1. House of York. Edward IV., 1461-- 1483. — Edward, 
marching northwards, completed his tr.umph by the victory 
of Towto?i (near Tadcaster), fought in a snowstorm on Palm 
Sunday, March 29. Quarter having been lorbidden by both 
sides, the slaughter was great. Henry and his family, who 
had awaited within the walls of York the issue of the fight 
escaped to the Borders. The new King, then twenty years 
of age, passed for the most accomplished, and until he grew 
unwieldy, the handsomest man of his time ; and he had the 
art of making himself popular ; but he was bloodthirsty, un- 
forgiving, and licentious. 

2'. The Lancastrians. — For three years Margaret and her 
friends, flitting between England, Scotland, and the Conti- 
nent, maintained a fitful struggle in the north, until the 
defeats of Hedgley Moor and Hexham crushed them for a 
time. It is said that during her wanderings Margaret fell 
among thieves, and was plundered of all she had. While they 
quarrelled over their booty, she escaped with her young son 
Edward into the depths of the forest. There she was met by 
another robber, to whom, in desperation, she presented the 
boy, saying, " Here, my friend, save the son of thy King." 
The outlaw's generosity was touched, and he led them to 
a place of safety. The ascendency of the White Rose brought 
great suffering upon the Lancastrians, their lands being 
made over to Yorkists, and themselves reduced to exile and 
poverty. Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, concealing his 
name, is known to have followed the Duke of Burgundy's 
train barefoot, and begging from door to door. King Henry, 
after the battle of Hexham, lay for more than a year hidden 
in Lancashire and Westmoi eland ; but he was finally be- 
trayed and brought prisoner to the Tower. 



EDWARD IV. [chap. 



3. Wars of the Roses renewed. — In the autumn of 
1464, Edward avowed his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter 
of Sir Richard Wydevile, and widow of Sir John Grey, a 
Lancastrian. Her beauty won his heart when she was a 
suppliant to him for the restoration of her husband's estates. 
Honours and riches were showered upon her kindred — father, 
brothers, sisters, sons — with a profusion which offended the 
old nobility, and especially the Earl of Warwick and his 
brothers. Warwick was not a man who could be safely 
provoked. He was exceeding wealthy, his hospitality en- 
deared him to the people, and he could raise an army at his 
word. In his various mansions 30,000 people are said to 
have been daily fed, and when he was in London, whoever 
had any acquaintance in his household might come and take 
as much meat as he could carry off on a dagger. Warwick 
was joined in his opposition to the Wydeviles by George 
Duke of Clamice, the King's brother, who married the Earl's 
daughter Isabel. A series of insurrections broke out, in 
which, with the exception of one raised by the Lancastrians, 
Warwick and his new son-in-law took a more or less open 
part, until in 1470 they were obliged to fly into France. 
Ere long they returned, and proclaimed King Henry ; for 
at the French court Warwick, meeting his old foe Queen Mar- 
garet, had gone over to her side, and had married his daughter 
Anne to her son Edward. The people gathered to him in 
crowds, and it was now King Edward's turn to fly the country; 
while his wife took refuge in the sanctuary at Westminster, 
where she was protected by the religious feeling of the age ; 
and Henry was replaced on the throne. Edward found shelter 
in the dominions of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, 
who had married his sister Margaret. It was a time of 
sudden revolutions. On the 14th March, 14.71, he came back 
with a small force, landing, like Henry of Bolingbroke before 
him, at Ravenspurne, and with equal success. His brother 



xxiv.] INVASION OF FRANCE. 103 

Clarence returned to his side, and Warwick — the "King- 
maker" as he was called — was overthrown and slain, together 
with his brother the Marquis of Montacute, at Bar net, on 
Easter Sunday, April 14. The struggle was not quite over, 
for that same day Queen Margaret landed, and her army 
encountered Edward, May 4, at Tewkesbury, where it was 
utterly defeated, she herself being captured soon after. Her 
son Edward was killed : the common story is that he was 
brought before his victorious namesake, who asked him how 
he durst be so bold as to make war in his realm. The youth 
made answer that he came to recover his inheritance, upon 
which the King's brothers, or their attendants, despatched 
him with their swords. The victory was followed up by the 
execution of the Lancastrian leaders. Henry, who had been 
again imprisoned in the Tower, died shortly after — of a broken 
heart, as the Yorkists said, or murdered, according to Lancas- 
trian rumour, by Edward's youngest brother, Richard Duke of 
Gloucester. Queen Margaret, after five years' captivity, was 
ransomed by King Louis XL of France, and died in her own 
country of Anjou. Anne Neville, widow of the slain Prince 
Edward, married the Duke of Gloucester, who is known to 
us by the nickname of " Crook-back Richard," and as one 
of the greatest of villains. Ambitious and unscrupulous he 
certainly was ; but as the detailed accounts of him were 
written after his death, and in the interest of his adver- 
saries, we cannot depend upon them, even in so small a 
matter as the straightness of his shoulders. 

4. Invasion of France. — Having nothing else to do, the 
King determined on the renewal of the claim to the French 
crown. Not satisfied with the large sums which Parliament 
readily granted to him for this object, but not venturing to 
levy taxes on his sole authority, Edward obtained from the 
wealthy citizens, who did not know how to refuse the King's 
requests, additional money under the name of a "bene- 



104 EDWARD V. [chap. 

volence." The invasion however came to nothing. The 
crafty Louis XL, who did not want to fight, persuaded his 
enemy to go quietly home in consideration of receiving 
an annual pension ; and truce was made in Aug. 1475 at 
Picquigny, near Amiens, to the disgust of Edward's soldiers 
and people. 

5. Death of Edward. — The Duke of Clarence came to his 
end in 1478. His royal brother charged him with treason, the 
peers found him guilty, and about ten days later it was given 
out that he had died in the Tower — how was never certainly 
known, but a wild story flew about that he had been drowned 
in a butt of Malmsey wine. Edward himself died April 9, 
1483, while preparing for another French war. He left two 
sons, Edward Prince of Wales, and Richard Duke of York; 
one thirteen, the other ten years old. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

EDWARD V. 

Edward V.; seizure of power by the Dukes of Gloucester and Buck- 
ingham (1) — execution of Lord Hastings ; the Duke of Gloucester 
raised to the throne (2). 

I. Edward V. April 9 — June 22, 1483. Protecto- 
rate of Gloucester. — Edward V. reigned less than three 
months, and was never crowned. At the time of his father's 
death he was living at Ludlow Castle, surrounded by his 
mother's kinsmen and friends. But on his road to London, 
he was met by his uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester, and by 
Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, the chiefs of the 
party against the Wydeviles. These two, by a sudden stroke 
of treachery and violence, arrested his mother's brother, 



xxv.] RICHARD MADE KING. 105 

Earl Rivers, his mother's son, Lord Grey, and two other of 
his friends, and, ordering the rest of the royal train to dis- 
perse, they, with their own followers, brought the King to 
Loi>don. The poor boy, seeing his friends thus taken from 
him, " wept and was nothing content, but it booted not." 
His mother, as soon as she heard of it, fled with her second 
son Richard Duke of York, and her five daughters, to the 
sanctuary at Westminster. The King was lodged in the 
Tower, then a palace as well as a fortress and a prison ; 
and Gloucester was appointed Protector. 

2. Deposition of Edward. — So far, Gloucester and his 
supporters, of whom Lord Hastings was one, had been united 
by a common hatred of the Wydeviles ; but it is plain that 
they now disagreed among themselves. On June 13, for 
some unknown reason, Hastings, by order of the Protector, 
was seized at the council-board in the Tower, and put to 
death out of hand. The same afternoon proclamation was 
made that Hastings and his friends had conspired to murder 
the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham. The prisoners 
of the Wydevile party were beheaded without trial at Ponte- 
fract. The little Duke of York was removed from his 
mother in the sanctuary to join his brother in the Tower, 
and thus Gloucester had both his nephews in his hands. 
On Sunday, June 22, one Doctor Ralf Shaw preached a ser- 
mon at PauPs Cross — a cross and pulpit which then stood at 
the north-east corner of St. Paul's — setting forth that the chil- 
dren were illegitimate on the ground of an alleged earlier 
marriage or contract of Edward IV., and that the Lord 
Protector was the rightful inheritor of the Crown. It appears 
that the claim thus first put forward was accepted by some 
assembly of Lords and Commons ; at any rate, on June 26, 
the Duke of Gloucester sat in Westminster Hall as King 
Richard III. of England. 



io6 RICHARD III. [chap. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

RICHARD III. 

Double coronation of Richard ; plots against him ; disappearance of 
the sons of Edward (i)—the Earl of Richmond; execution of 
Buckingham (2) — Legislation (3) — death of Anne; invasion of 
Richmond ; battle of Bosivorth ; fall of Richard (4) — Printing (5) 
— Literature (6). 

I. Richard III. 1483-1485. — Richard and Anne his wife 
were crowned at Westminster, July 6, 1483, the preparations 
which had been made for the coronation of the nephew 
serving for those of the uncle. To please the North-country- 
men, with whom he was popular, the King and Queen were 
a second time crowned in York Minster. While they were 
thus spending their time, plots were formed against Richard, 
in which Buckingham, hitherto his chief ally, joined. In the 
south and west, there was much murmuring at the captivity 
of Edward's sons, and a rising for their release was about to 
take place, when it was reported that the children were no 
longer living. In the next reign, it was given out that Sir 
James Tyri'el and John Dighton had confessed that on the 
refusal of Bracketibury, Constable of the Tower, to put his 
young prisoners to death, Richard had bidden that the keys 
of the Tower should be delivered to Tyrrel for twenty-four 
hours, and that TyrreFs groom Dighton, together with one 
Miles Forrest, had smothered the sleeping children in their 
bed, and then buried them at the stair-foot. It was further 
rumoured that by Richard's desire a priest of Brackenbury's 
household had removed the bodies elsewhere. Some how- 
ever have doubted the murder, notwithstanding the apparent 
confirmation of the popular belief by a discovery made 191 



THE EARL OE RICHMOND. 107 



years later of the bones of two boys, of about the age of the 
young princes, lying buried in the White Tower under the 
staircase leading to the chapel. The reigning King, Charles 
II., had them removed to Henry the Seventh's Chapel as the 
remains of Edward V. and Richard Duke of York. 

2. Revolt of Buckingham. — The party against Richard 
consisted of Buckingham, many old Lancastrians, and some 
of the Wydeviles, acting in concert with Henry Tudor, Earl 
of Richmond, who on the father's side was a grandson of 
Owen Tudor and Katharine, widow of Henry V., and on the 
mother's a descendant, through the Beaufort line, of John 
of Gaunt, and who, in the absence of any other offshoot of 
the House of Lancaster, was accepted as the representative 
of its claim to the throne. He was then an exile in Britanny ; 
— indeed, from the time he was five years old, so he said, 
he had always been either a fugitive or a prisoner. The 
present revolt did not better his position, for Buckingham, 
deserted by his troops, was betrayed, and beheaded at Salis- 
bury ; the other confederates dispersed ; and Richmond, 
whose fleet had been scattered by a storm, did not venture 
to land. Executions of the disaffected followed, and among 
the sufferers was, according to the common tale, one Colling- 
bourne, who had made a couplet upon Richard and his 
three counsellors, Ratcliffe, Catesby, and Lord Lovel : — 



; The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel our Dog, 
Rule all England under the Hog." 



The King's cognizance was a wild boar, and the rimer lost 
his head for thus insulting it. 

3. Legislation. — In January 1484 a Parliament was held 
by which a statute was passed forbidding the exaction of 
" benevolences." Another Act, while laying restrictions upon 
foreign traders, expressly excepts from its operation trade in 



108 RICHARD III, [chap. 

books " written or printed." The statutes of this reign were 
the first ever printed. 

4. Death of Richard. — In March 1485, Queen Anne died 
of sorrow for the loss of her only son Edward, or, as Richard's 
enemies afterwards suggested, of poison given by her hus- 
band. The King then declared his nephew, John de la Pole, 
Ea?'l of Lincoln, his heir. According to some, Richard was 
haunted by the memory of his murdered nephews ; he knew 
no peace of mind, his hand was ever on his dagger, his rest 
broken by fearful dreams. Whether he was troubled by 
imaginary dangers or not, he had a real one in Richmond, 
whom the exiles and malcontents had chosen for their chief, 
on his promise, if he obtained the Crown, to marry Elisabeth, 
daughter of Edward IV. On the 7th August, Richmond, 
with a body of adventurers, mostly Normans, landed at 
Milford Haven, and, advancing into the country, was met 
by Richard, with an army double in number. A story is 
told that John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, received a warn- 
ing, which, however, he disregarded, against joining the 
King. It was in two lines written on his gate : — ■ 

" Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, 
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." 

This was true enough ; for Richmond's step-father Lord 
Stanley, -who could muster many followers in Cheshire and 
Lancashire, and Percy Earl of Northumberland, both holding 
offices under Richard, had been gained by his enemy. When 
the battle began near Market Bosworth, Aug. 22, Richard 
found the Stanleys opposed to him, Northumberland not 
stirring a foot, and his men wavering. He nevertheless 
fought hand to hand with desperate courage, cutting his way 
up to his rival, but fell overpowered by numbers. Lord 
Stanley took his crown, and set it on the head of Richmond, 
who was hailed as King. Richard's body was thrown across 



PRINTING. 109 



a horse, and carried to the Grey Friars' Church at Leicester 
where it was buried with scant ceremony. 

5. Printing. — So long as books could only be multiplied in 
manuscript they were of necessity both scarce and dear. 
The monks were at first copyists as well as authors, but 
after a while copying became a trade, and books grew 
somewhat cheaper. Under Edward IV. the charge of a 
copyist was twopence a leaf for prose and a penny for 
verse of about thirty lines to the page. Adding the price 
of the paper, we may reckon that a good copy of a prose 
work cost, at the present value of money, about two shillings 
a leaf. Paper had begun to take the place of parchment 
about the middle of the fourteenth century. But in the 
reign of Edward IV. a great invention was introduced, 
which was to put an end to this laborious copying. About 
1474, William Caxton, a native of the Weald of Kent, 
who had learned the new art of printing abroad — in 
the Netherlands it is supposed — came home, and set up as 
a printer in Westminster. The King and his court gave 
him their countenance, and the Queer's brother, the accom- 
plished Anthony Wydevile, Earl Rivers, translated for 
Caxton's press a French work, u The Diets and notable 
wise Sayings of Philosophers." A large number of the books 
printed by Caxton were translations from the French, and all 
were in what is called black-leiter type. 

6. Literature. — The fifteenth century did not give us any 
very famous writers. John Lydgate, who flourished about 
1430, though not a man of much genius, was a favourite poet 
of his own day. He was a monk of Bury St. Edmund's, 
where he opened a school, and taught literature and versifi- 
cation. Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph in the reign 
of Henry VI. wrote against the Lollards, but, being adjudged 
to have himself fallen into heresy, was obliged to burn his 
books publicly at Paul's Cross, and was deprived of his 



RICHARD III. [chap. 



bishopric. Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of the King's 
Bench in the same reign, wrote for the instruction of the 
young Prince of Wales, to whom he was governor during his 
retreat in France, a Latin treatise upon the laws of England. 
In this he impresses upon his pupil that the kingly power in 
England is not absolute, but limited, and that the country 
owed its prosperity to its freedom. The Mort Darthur, or 
Death of Arthur, a fine prose romance, founded upon French 
fictions, was composed by Sir Thomas Malory, and printed 
in 1485 by Caxton. July arts or Juliana Berners, said to 
have been prioress of Sopewell nunnery near St. Albans, was 
the authoress of treatises upon hunting and hawking. The 
spirited ballad of Chevy Chase, which recounts a fierce fray 
between the Percy and Douglas of the days of Henry IV., 
may perhaps have been composed during the reign of Henry 
VI., but some would date it a century later. There is another 
and better-known version of the same story, which is more 
modern still. Among ballad heroes, Robin Hood, a legen- 
dary captain of outlaws and deerstealers, frequenting Not- 
tinghamshire and Yorkshire, stands chief. Whether he had 
any real existence is uncertain, but he was a subject for 
popular song as far back as the days of Edward III. A 
few of the ballads about him which have come down to us 
perhaps belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. One 
of the best, " The Little Geste of Robin Hood," which places 
its hero in the days of some King Edward, was printed early 
in the reign of Henry VI II., and shows strongly the popular 
dislike of the higher clergy, whom the bold outlaw is repre- 
sented as making his special prey. 



xxvii.] HENRY VII. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

HENRY VII. 

Henry Tudor ; Yorkist risings ; Lambert Simnel (i) — war with 
France (2) — Richard Plantagenet or Perkin Warbeck ; execution 
of Stanley ; surrender of Perkin ; execution of Perkin and War- 
wick (3) — marriages of Henry s children (4) — Empson and 
Dudley ; death of Henry (5) — allegiance to the King de facto (6). 

I. House of Tudor. Henry VII. 1485-1509. — The coro- 
nation of Henry Tudor on the battle-field was followed up 
by a more formal one at Westminster, and without entering 
into questions of title, Parliament settled the crown on Henry 
and his heirs, and in order to unite the rival roses, pressed 
him to carry out the intended marriage with Elizabeth of 
York. This accordingly took place Jan. 18, i486, though 
it is said that his dislike to the House of York led him to 
treat her with coldness. Another representative of that 
House, young Edward Earl of Warwick, son of George 
Duke of Clarence, he at once shut up in the Tower, and 
altogether the King made his hand so heavy upon the Yorkists 
as to bring about a rising within a year of his accession, in 
which Lord Lovel " the dog " was one of the leaders. This 
was soon quelled ; but the next year the Yorkists made one 
of the wildest attempts on record. A youth appeared, 
asserting himself to be the Earl of Warwick, escaped from 
the Tower. Margaret, widow of the Duke of Burgundy, 
and sister of Edward IV., furnished the Earl of Lincoln and 
Lord Lovel with troops to support him, and he was crowned 
King in Ireland, where the House of York had always been 
beloved ; but few joined him in England, and his German 



U2 HENRY VII. [chap. 

and Irish army was overthrown by Henry's troops at Stoke- 
upon-Trent, June 16, 1487. The Earl of Lincoln, and most 
of the Yorkist leaders, fell ; Lovel fled, and was never heard 
of again ; while the pretended Warwick, who was one Lam- 
bert Simnelj son of a joiner at Oxford, was captured, and 
treated with contemptuous mercy, Henry making him a 
scullion in his kitchen. 

2. Foreign affairs. — In character Henry was cautious, 
crafty, fond of money, and ingenious in acquiring it. In 1487 
there was war between Britanny and France, and the English 
being well-disposed to help Britanny, the cunning King got 
subsidies from Parliament, renewed the extortion of money 
by " benevolences," and under a pretence of war filled his 
coffers. At last, in 1492, he passed over to France, laid 
siege to Boulogne for a few days, made peace, and led his 
murmuring army back. Besides the public treaty there was 
a private one, by which the King of France bound himself 
to pay a hundred and forty-nine thousand pounds to the 
King of England. 

3. Perkin Warbeck. — Meanwhile a new claimant to the 
throne had appeared, styling himself Richard Plantagenet y 
Duke of York. According to his own account, he was the 
second son of Edward IV., and had been saved alive when 
his brother Edward V. was put to death ; according to 
Henry, he was one Perkin Warbeck or Pierce Osbeck, of 
Tournay ; and people are still in doubt whether he was an 
impostor or not. He first showed himself in Cork, where 
he was well received ; then went to France, and thence to 
Flanders, when the Duchess Margaret of Burgundy received 
him with open arms. The King discovering, by means of 
spies, that communications were carried on between the 
friends of "Richard" in England and those abroad, some 
executions took place, amongst which was that of Sir 
William Stanley, who had saved Henry's life on Bosworth 



xxvii.] MARRIAGES OF HENRY'S CHILDREN. 113 

Field. The general suspicion was that Stanley suffered in 
order that his enormous wealth might be forfeited to the 
crown. In 1496 "Richard" passed into Scotland, where the 
King, James IV., gave him his kinswoman Katharine Gordon 
in marriage. In the next year the adventurer, landing in 
Cornwall, was there joined by many of the people, but on the 
approach of the royal army he left his followers and took 
sanctuary, surrendering in a few days on promise that his 
life should be spared. His beautiful wife, " the White Rose," 
as she was called, became an attendant on Henry's Queen. 
For nearly two years " Richard " lived a prisoner, but in 
1499 he and a fellow-captive, Warwick, who for no crime but 
his birth had lain for fourteen years in the Tower, were 
tried and executed on a charge of high treason. The two 
young men, it was alleged, had planned escape, after which the 
adventurer was to be again proclaimed as King Richard IV. 
But it was suspected that the Earl was sacrificed to Henry's 
scheme for wedding his son to a Spanish princess, whose 
father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, crafty and careful as 
Henry himself, had said plainly that he did not consider the 
alliance a safe one as long as Warwick lived. 

4. Marriages of Henry's children. — In 1 501, at the age of 
fifteen, the King's eldest son, named Arthur in memory of the 
Welsh hero from whom Henry claimed descent, was married 
to Katharine of Aragon. But Arthur dying within five 
months' time, his young widow was contracted to the King's 
second son Henry, a dispensation having been obtained 
from the Pope to legalize this union with a brother's wife. 
With intent to cement the peace between England and 
Scotland, the King's eldest daughter Margaret was married 
in 1503 to James IV. of Scotland ; and this politic alliance 
proved in the end the means of uniting the two kingdoms 
of Britain. 

5. Extortions of Henry. Empson and Dudley. — In the 
T I 



114 HENRY VIII. [chap. 



latter part of his reign Henry made himself hateful by his 
extortions. His chief instruments were two lawyers, Richard 
Empson and Edmund Dudley, who raked up long-forgotten 
statutes in order to exact fines for their transgression. The 
whole course of justice was wrested to furnish pretences for 
extorting money, and the employment of false witnesses, 
or " promoters," rendered it hardly possible for the most 
innocent to escape. Henry thus at once added to his hoards, 
and kept his subjects from growing dangerously rich. He 
died April 21, 1509, at the palace of Shene, which he had 
rebuilt with great magnificence, and had called, after his 
earlier title, Richmond. He was buried in his own beautiful 
chapel in Westminster Abbey. 

6. Allegiance. — The attempts of Warbeck and the uncer- 
tainty of Henry's title caused the passing of an important 
statute, by which it was declared to be the duty of a subject 
to serve the sovereign for the time being, and that no one, for 
so doing, should be convict or attaint of treason. This was 
to prevent the recurrence of the state of things which had 
existed during the Wars of the Roses, when men were 
punished at one time for following York, and at another 
for following Lancaster. In technical language, it protected 
those who served the King de facto (King by fact, actual 
King) even though he might not be King de jure (King 
by right). 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

HENRY VIII. 

Henry VIII. ; beheading of Empson and Dudley (1) — battle of the 
Spurs ; battle of Flodden ; marriages of Mary Tudor ; Field 0/ 
the Cloth of Gold (2) — Cardinal Wolsey ; divorce of Katharine 



xxviii.] FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 115 



of Aragon ; marriage with Anne Boleyn ; fall and death of 
Wolsey ; separation from Rome; the Reformation, religious 
and political ($)—the King's wives (4) — Thomas Cram-well ; sup- 
pression of the monasteries ; the Pilgrimage of Grace ; Reginald 
Pole; the Bible ; the Six Articles; beheading of Cromwell ; Re- 
ligious affairs (5) — wars with Scotland and France (6)— beheading 
of the Earl of Surrey ; death and will of Henry (7) — Defender 
of the Faith (8) — Wales and Ireland (9) — the navy (10). 

1. Henry VIII. 1509-1547. — The new King was a hand- 
some youth of eighteen, highly educated and accomplished ; 
but though he gave fair promise, Hemy was of a fierce 
and tyrannical nature. Yet he had a regard for the mere 
letter of the law, even while he bent the law to his caprice. 
To satisfy the revenge of those whom they had injured, 
Empson and Dudley were beheaded on a frivolous charge of 
high treason, and thus, though bad men, they suffered un- 
justly for crimes which they had not committed. 

2. War with France. Scottish Invasion. — Henry soon 
mixed himself up in continental wars, and, allied with the 
Empero7'-elcct Maximilian, in 15 13 routed the French at 
Guinegate, in what was jestingly called u the Battle of the 
Spurs" from the panic-stricken flight of the enemy's cavalry. 
The Scots took advantage of this war to invade England, 
but were defeated by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, 
in a battle beneath Flodden hills, Sept. 9, 15 13, where their 
King, James IV., together with the flower of their nation, 
were left dead on the field. The next year peace was made 
with the French, their King, Louis XLL, marrying Henry's 
sister Mary, who, being left a widow in three months' time, 
at once gave her hand to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 
In June 1520 Henry had a series of friendly meetings with 
the new King of France, Francis L, between Guines and 
Ardres, in which such splendour was displayed that the 
meeting-place was called " The Field of the Cloth of Gold." 



n6 HENRY VIII [cttvp. 

But nothing came of these interviews, for Henry was soon 
won over to the interests of the Emperor, Charles V., in 
alliance with whom, in 1522, he undertook a new war against 
France. Peace was made in 1525, the French agreeing to 
pay Henry an annual pension. 

3. Breach with Rome. — During this period the King had 
been guided by Thomas Wolsey, a priest, and son of a 
burgess of Ipswich. Able and ambitious, Wolsey had by 
his talents raised himself to the highest pitch of favour, 
and honours and promotions were showered upon him ; he 
became Archbishop of York, Chancellor, a Cardinal, and 
the Papal Legate ; and he even hoped to be Pope himself. 
But a series of unforeseen circumstances brought about the 
sudden downfall of this powerful minister. The King and 
his wife Katharine, to whom he had been married in the 
first year of his reign, had only one child living, Alary, born 
in '516. Disappointed at having no son to succeed him, the 
King, according to his own story, began to think that this 
marriage with his brother's wife was displeasing to Heaven. 
His scruples were quickened or suggested by his having 
pitched upon Katharine's successor, Anne Boleyn, a beauti- 
ful and lively maid of honour. He applied for a divorce to 
Pope Clement VII., who, equnlly unwilling to offend either 
Henry or Katharine's nephew the Emperor Charles, could 
not make up his mind what to do. At last, after the matter 
had dragged on for five years, and the Universities and 
learned men at home and abroad had been consulted, Henry 
privately married Anne Boleyn. The newly appointed 
Primate, Thomas Cranmer, who had laboured zealously in 
the King's cause, then pronounced the marriage with Katha- 
rine to have been null and void from the beginning (May 23, 
1533). The forsaken wife, who steadily refused to forego her 
title of Queen, died three years later. More however than 
the fortunes of Katharine or Anne had been concerned in this 



xxviii.] BREA CH WITH R QME. 1 1 7 

affair. Henry became dissatisfied with Cardinal Wolsey, 
and his enemies, chief among whom was Anne, were now 
able to ruin him. The chancellorship was taken from him, 
and he was obliged to make over his palace of York-place 
(now Whitehall) to the King. In 1530, the year after he 
had fallen from power, he was arrested for high treason, and 
brought towards London, but, sickening on the way, he died 
at Leicester Abbey, saying on his death-bed, " If I had served 
God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have 
given me over in my grey hairs." Nor was the fall of 
Wolsey all. Moved by this dispute, Henry went along with 
the general desire for a reform of ecclesiastical abuses, and 
step by step the English Church was withdrawn from the 
power of the Pope. The Statute of Appeals, passed in 
1 533, declared that henceforth there should be no appeals 
to the Pope or any authority outside the realm. All pay- 
ments to Rome were stopped, and the King was declared 
to be Supreme Head of the Church of England. Denial of 
this title was one of the many matters which were now made 
high treason, and for this offence the aged Fisher, Bishop of 
Rochester, and the learned and excellent Sir Thomas More — 
who had succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor, but had retired, 
not approving of the King's measures — besides a number of 
bss notable persons, suffered death. By these proceedings, 
Henry became an agent in the Reformation, as that separa- 
tion of part of Europe from the communion of the 
Roman see which took place in this century, is called. 
His part in it was more political than religious; and the 
mass of the nation was of the same mind — opposed to 
the power, but not disagreeing with the doctrines of Rome. 
The particular creed of Martin Luther, the German leader 
in this movement, did not take root in England, but the 
Swiss and French Reformers, who went further than he 
did, had much influence in the next reign. There was 



nS HENRY VIII. [chap. 

various teaching among the Reformers, but it in general 
differed from that of Rome on the nature and number of 
the Sacraments, and on the obligations and duties of the 
clergy : the reverence paid to relics and images, and the 
use of Latin in the Church services, were disapproved of, 
and the study of the Scriptures was urged on every one. 
The men of " the new learning," as the Reformed doctrines 
were at first called, soon began to be distinguished by the 
name of Protestants. Those who adhered to the Pope were 
called Roman Catholics, Romanists, and Papists, and by 
themselves, simply Catholics. These names must at first be 
understood only as roughly marking two parties within the 
English Church, which had not yet formed themselves into 
distinct communions. 

4. The King's Wives. — Anne Boleyn did not survive for 
many months the princess whom she- had ousted. In May 
1536, her marriage with the King having been declared null 
and void, she was beheaded on a charge, true or false, of 
unfaithfulness, leaving one daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1533. 
The day after her death, Henry married Jane Seymour, the 
daughter of a Wiltshire knight, who died the next year, 
shortly after the birth of her son Edward. Early in 1540 Henry 
took another wife, Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves. 
This match was brought about by his chief minister, Thomas 
Cromwell, who, being favourable to the Reformation, wished 
the King to ally himself with the Protestant princes of Ger- 
many. But unluckily Anne was not good-looking, and Henry 
found a pretext for having this marriage also declared null 
and void. Anne was well pensioned off, and lived the rest of 
her life in England ; while the King, without delay, married 
Katharine Howard, niece of Thomas Howard, Duke of 
Norfolk. She, being found to have misconducted herself, 
was beheaded, Fib. 12, 1542 ; and the next year, the King 
married his sixth and last wife, Katharine Parr, widow of 



xxvin.] ADMINISTRATION OF CROMWELL. ng 

Lord Latimer, a discreet woman, who kept her place as 
Henry's Queen until his death. 

5. Administration of Cromwell. — Wolsey's power passed 
to one who had been in his service, Thomas Cromwell, 
created successively Baron Cromwell and Earl of Essex. 
The King made him his vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, 
and as during his administration all the monastic founda- 
tions were destroyed, he has been called "the Hammer 
of the Monks." This was not done all at once. First, in 
1536, the smaller monasteries were dissolved by Act of 
Parliament, and their revenues given to the King. The 
North-country people, who clung to the old ways, broke 
out into revolt at this : the Yorkshire rebellion, led by a 
gentleman named Robert Aske, was quaintly called " the 
Pilgrimage of Grace" After the resistance was put down, 
the destruction of the larger religious houses soon followed, 
the abbots and priors being made to surrender them, as of 
free will, to the King, after which in 1539 an Act was passed 
to confirm these surrenders. Meanwhile, famous relics and 
images and shrines were destroyed, among them the rich 
shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Henry proclaiming 
him to have been no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor. 
Of the vast wealth thus thrown into the King's hands, part 
went to found new bishoprics and part to fortify the coast ; 
but much more was spent in lavish grants to the courtiers, 
whilst many of the abbey churches and buildings were pulled 
down for the sake of the lead and stone. On his side, the Pope, 
Paul III., had issued in 1 538 a bull excommunicating and 
deposing. Henry ; and Cardinal Reginald Pole, a grandson 
of George Duke of Clarence, did his best to stir up foreign 
powers as well as English malcontents for the restoration by 
force of arms of the old state of ecclesiastical matters. Pole 
himself kept out of the way abroad, but many persons, in- 
cluding his elder brother Lord Montague, and later on his 



HENRY VIII. [chap. 



aged mother, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, the last of the 
direct line of the Plantagenets, suffered death on charges 
of treasonable correspondence with him. It must not be 
thought, however, that the new learning was triumphant. 
Under the influence of Cranmer and Cromwell, the Re- 
formers had indeed the satisfaction of seeing the Bible in 
English, which had hitherto been forbidden, placed in every 
church for all men to read. But in 1539 the party opposed 
to the Reformers, of which the leaders were the Duke of 
Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, ob- 
tained the passing of the Act of the " Six Articles," termed 
by the Protestants " the whip with six strings," which in great 
measure imposed the old doctrines. Cromwell was still 
seemingly in high favour when he suddenly fell, owing, it is 
believed, to Henry's dissatisfaction with Anne of Cleves. He 
was beheaded July 28, 1540, an Act of Parliament attaint- 
ing him of treason and heresy having been passed, without 
his being heard in his defence. After the fall of Cromwell, 
Gardiner and his party came more into favour, and in 
1543 an Act was passed forbidding the reading of the Bible 
by " the lower sort " of people — artificers, labourers, and 
the like ; although later on the English Litany, translated 
perhaps by the King, and other prayers in the vulgar 
tongue, were set forth. Of the Protestants put to death in 
this reign, one of the most notable was Anne Ascue (daughter 
of Sir William Ascue), who was burned in Smithneld, in 
July, 1546. 

6. Wars with Scotland and France. — In 1542 a war 
broke out with Scotland, whose King, James V., being on 
the side of Rome, was not disposed towards alliance with 
his uncle Henry of England. A Scottish army crossed the 
Border, but whether from disaffection or from sudden panic, 
it fled before a few hundreds of Englishmen at Solway Moss. 
This disgrace broke the heart of James, who died not long 



xxvii i. ] DBA Til OF HENR Y. 121 

afterwards, leaving as his successor an infant daughter 
Alary Stuart. Henry negotiated a marriage between the 
young Queen and his son Edward ; but the treaty to that 
effect was soon broken off by the Scots, and Henry's attempts 
to enforce its fulfilment by sending his army to ravage and 
burn their country only set them the more against the 
proposed match. Edinburgh itself was sacked and fired by 
the English under Edward Seymotir, Earl of Hertford, 
brother of Queen Jane Seymour. Irritated by French 
intrigues in Scotland, Henry, in alliance with Charles V., 
also entered upon war with France, and passing over to 
that country in 1544, he took Boulogne, which it was 
afterwards agreed should be given back at the end of eight 
years, upon payment of a sum of money, besides the pen- 
sion due by the treaty of 1525. The Scots were included in 
this peace. 

7. Death of Henry. — Henry, who in his later years had 
become unwieldy and infirm, and suffered great pain, died 
Jan. 28, 1547. Nine days earlier, Henry Howard, Earl of 
Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, and famous for his 
poetical talent, had been beheaded on a charge of treason. 
It is suspected that Surrey owed his death to the Seymours, 
who were now in favoui with the King, and between whom 
and the Howards there was bitter jealousy. The Earl of 
Hertford was among the sixteen "executors " of King Henry's 
will, to whom the government during the minority of his 
son was entrusted ; for Parliament had given Henry special 
powers with regard to the succession to his kingdom. In 
case Edward died childless, the crown was settled by Act 
of Parliament on the King's daughters, first on Mary and 
her heirs, then on Elizabeth and her heirs. After them, 
Henry bequeathed it to the descendants of his younger 
sister, Alary. 

8. Defender of the Faith.— Henry was the first of oui 



EDWARD VI. [chap. 



Kings who bore the title of "Defender of the Faith." This 
he obtained in 152 1 from the Pope, Leo X., in return for 
his having written a Latin treatise against Luther, and be 
and his successors still kept it after they had ceased, in 
papal eyes at least, to deserve it. 

9. Wales and Ireland.— In 1536 Wales was incorporated 
with England, and the English laws and liberties were 
granted to its inhabitants. Ireland, where England had 
almost lost its authority, such as it was, was brought under 
a somewhat stronger rule ; and in 1542 it was raised to the 
dignity of a kingdom, having been hitherto styled only 
a lordship. 

10. The Navy. — Henry VIII. followed the example of 
his father in paying great attention to the navy. He con- 
stituted the Admiralty and Navy Office, and established the 
Trinity House and the dockyards at Deptford, Woolwich, 
and Portsmouth. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

EDWARD VI. 

Edward VI; ride of the Protector Somerset (1) — beheading of Sey- 
7) 1 our ; fall and beheading of Somerset (2) — the Duke of North- 
humberland ; death of the King and alteration of the succession (3) 
— the Reformation (4). 

I. Edward VI., 1547-1553. — The directions of Henry's will 
were at once infringed, the Earl of Hertford prevailing on 
his fellow-executors to make him Protector and governor 
of the young King his nephew. In accordance, it was said, 
with the late King's intentions, he was also created Dnke 
of Somerset. Ambitious and rapacious, the Protector was 



xxix.] DUKE OF SO M ERSE T. 123 

yet beloved by the common people, for whom he had kindly 
feelings. He was a good soldier, and in the first year of his 
rule made a savage raid into Scotland, in hopes of enforcing 
the marriage treaty ; and his victory at Pinkie, near Mussel- 
burgh, strengthened his influence at home, although he did 
not bring back the young Queen, who in the course of the 
next year was sent into France as the betrothed of the 
Dauphin, afterwards King Francis II. In religious matters 
Somerset gave his support to the advanced Reformers, 
who had hitherto been kept down, and when Parliament 
met, the " Six Articles " and the old statutes against the 
Lollards were repealed, as well as Henry's harsh enact- 
ments concerning treason. All chantries (where masses 
were said for the souls of particular persons) and colleges, 
saving only the cathedral chapters, the colleges in the 
universities, and a few others, were suppressed, and their 
property made over to the crown. The King, who was only 
ten years old when he came to the throne, being brought 
up by men of strong Protestant views, naturally held their 
opinions ; and in piety and religious zeal he was beyond his 
years. Hugh Latimer, the most outspoken of the Reformed 
preachers, the most fearless rebuker of iniquity in high 
places, had a pulpit erected for him in the King's garden, 
where young Edward would sit and listen to sermons an hour 
long. The boy received an excellent education, and being 
intelligent, quick, and thoughtful, he made great progress. 
Even before he was eight years old he had written Latin 
letters to his father. 

2. Fall of Somerset. — The first enemy Somerset had to 
deal with was his own brother, Thomas Lord Seymour of 
Sudeley, High Admiral of England, an ambitious and 
unprincipled man, who had married the widowed Queen 
Katharine Parr. Aiming at supplanting the Protectcr, he 
was himself destroyed by a bill of attainder, without being 



124 EDWARD VI. [chap. 

heard in his own defence, and was beheaded March 20, 
1549. Somerset's rule did not last much longer, his 
government proving a failure both at home and abroad 
The common people of the West rose in arms to demand 
the restoration of the mass, which had given place to the 
English Prayer-book ; the Norfolk and Suffolk men, headed 
by Ket, a tanner, broke out into insurrection against the 
landowners who were enclosing commons and turning arable 
land into pasture. With the insurgents in the East the 
Protector somewhat sympathised, and it was afterwards 
charged against him that he had at first given them en- 
couragement. His administration was wasteful ; he had 
made a vast fortune out of the Church property, and had 
given offence by building for himself a splendid palace (on 
the site of which stands the present Somerset House), pulling 
down churches and the cloister of St. Paul's to supply 
materials, or make room for it. The other lords of the 
council joined together to get rid of him, and he was deposed 
from the Protectorate. One of the faults alleged against him 
was having left Boulogne, which was now threatened by the 
French, in a defenceless state ; and, the country being un- 
prepared to carry on a war for it, his successors were obliged 
to give it back, though they received in compensation only 
a fifth of the sum promised to Henry VIII., and virtually 
surrendered the annual pension. But to the last Somerset 
was beloved, especially as the administration of his successors 
proved worse than his had been, and when, in 1552, he was 
beheaded on a charge of conspiring against his rival John 
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and other lords of the 
council, great was the sorrow. 

3. The Duke of Northumberland. — Northumberland, 
who took the management of affairs after Somerset's fall, 
was the son of that Dudley who had been the evil agent 
of Henry VII. He appears in reality to have had no 



xxix.] DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 125 

religion, but it suited him to set up for a thorough-going 
Protestant, and he was in consequence the idol of some 
of the more eager members of that party, although his 
government was tyrannical, and the people detested him. 
In 1553 the young King, who took much interest in public 
affairs, and whose coming of age was looked forward to with 
great hopes, fell dangerously ill. Northumberland foresaw 
that if the Lady Mary, who was known to disapprove of the 
doings of her brother's ministers in religious matters, came 
to the throne, his power would be at an end. He therefore 
persuaded the dying boy to alter the succession — a thing 
which he had no right to do without authority from Parlia- 
ment — by shutting out his sisters, and settling the crown on 
his cousin Lady Jane Grey, daughter of Henry Grey, Duke 
of Suffolk, and granddaughter of Mary Tudor and Charles 
Brandon. The young King, it is believed, was led to this by 
the fear that the Reformed faith would suffer if Mary reigned ; 
Northumberland's motive was the hope of setting on the 
throne his fourth son, Lord Guilford Dudley, whom he had 
just married to Lady Jane. Shortly after, Edward died at 
Greenwich, July 6, his last prayer being that England 
might be preserved from " papistry." The common belief 
was that Northumberland had hastened his end by poison, 
but of this there is no sufficient proof. 

4. The Reformation. — The Reformation made rapid pro- 
gress in London and in the towns, especially in those on the 
sea-coast, but the country districts were slower in accepting 
it, and the Government pushed it on both further and faster 
than suited the mass of the nation. Somerset early issued 
injunctions to put away the pictures and images in the 
churches ; and the overthrow of crucifixes, the whitewashing 
of walls once adorned with paintings, and the destruction of 
stained glass, brought the change before the eyes of the 
simplest and moot ignorant. Gardiner, Edmund Bonner, 



i 2 6 EDWARD VI. [chap. 

Bishop of London, and other bishops who did not go all 
lengths with the party in power, were sent to prison ; and 
Northumberland filled their sees with Protestants, Nicholas 
Ridley, one of the ablest of the reforming clergy, succeed- 
ing Bonner in London. Out of the college and chantry 
property King Edward endowed grammar-schools at Shrews- 
bury, Birmingham, and other places ;.but great part of the 
wealth gained by stripping the churches of their plate, and 
suppressing and diminishing the possessions of bishoprics, 
went into the hands of the men in power and their friends, 
to whom the Reformation was dear chiefly for the sake of 
the plunder. Bishop Ridley, preaching before Edward at 
Whitehall, took occasion to speak of the distressed condition 
of the London poor ; upon which the young King, sending for 
the Bishop, asked his advice as to what should be done. Ridley 
suggested consulting the corporation of the City, whose 
conduct in founding hospitals and schools already formed an 
honourable contrast to that of the Government. The result 
was that the old house of the Grey Friars was chartered by 
the King as Chrisfs Hospital (vulgarly called the Bluecoat 
School) ; the Hospitals of .57. Thomas and St. Bartholomew 
were re-founded and re-endowed, and the King also made 
over the royal house of Bridewell for a workhouse. The 
Prayer-book of the Church of England was compiled in this 
reign by Archbishop Cranmer, who took the old Latin 
sen- ices for his groundwork. The first complete Prayer- 
book was published in 1 549, but many changes were made 
in 1552 under the influence of the more extreme Re- 
formers ; and Acts " for the Uniformity of Service " forbade 
the use of any other religious rites. The Lady Mary firmly 
refused to have the new service used in her house, although, 
after the fall of Somerset, attempts were made to constrain 
her to conform to the established worship. Tolerance was 
not in those days looked upon as a virtue, even by Reformers. 



xxx.] MARY. 127 

A friend of Anne Ascue, Joan Bocher by name, who held 
opinions condemned by both of the two great religious 
parties, was in 1550 burned at the stake. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

MARY. 

Mary ; Lady Jane Grey (1) — the Spanish marriage ; Wyatfs in- 
surrection ; beheading of Lady Jane; reconciliation zvith Rome (2) 
— persecution of the Protestants (3) — loss of Calais ; death of 
Mary (4). 

I. Mary, iSSS-^SS. Lady Jane Grey.— It had been in- 
tended to keep Edward's death a secret until the Ladies 
Mary and Elizabeth had been secured ; but Mary had 
friends who gave her warning, and she at once made her 
escape into Norfolk. Her innocent rival, Jane Grey, was 
but sixteen, beautiful, accomplished, learned, and firm in the 
Reformed faith. She had known nothing of her father-in- 
law's ambitious schemes, and when he and four other lords 
came to her at Sion House, and knelt before her as their 
Queen, she received their information with astonishment and 
dismay. On the 10th July she was proclaimed ; but her 
reign only lasted nine days. The nation was unanimous 
in regarding Mary as the rightful heir, and thousands 
gathered round her. She was proclaimed, amid general 
rejoicing, on the 19th July, and not a blow being struck for 
Jane, Mary entered London in triumph at the head of a band 
of friends. The Duke of Northumberland, whose ambition 
had thus been baffled, was tried and beheaded, and to the 
dismay of the Reformers, died declaring himself to be of the 



2 3 MARY. [chap. 



ancient faith. Simon Renard, the ambassador of Charles 
V., whom Mary chiefly consulted, urged that Jane and her 
husband should also die, but the Queen as yet was pitiful, 
and they were only kept prisoners in the Tower. 

2. The Spanish Marriage. — Unfortunately for her popu- 
larity, Mary was sincerely devoted to the Church of Rome. 
The nation indeed, discontented with the reforming states- 
men of the last reign, was by no means Protestant at heart. 
The deprived bishops were restored, Gardiner was made 
Chancellor, the foreign preachers were ordered out of the 
country, and the mass was said as of old. But Mary wanted 
more than this ; and whereas her people wished her to 
marry some English nobleman, she had made up her 
mind to take the Emperor's son, Philip, for her husband. 
Everyone agreed in disapproving of her choice. The 
heir of a foreign kingdom would have other interests than 
those of England to look to ; and men feared lest the 
country should become a province of Spain. To hinder 
the marriage, Sir Thomas Wyatt raised a formidable in- 
surrection among the Kentish men, who marched upon 
London with the intention of seizing upon the Queen. 
The enterprise however failed, and after a skirmish at 
Temple Bar, Wyatt gave himself up. The first to suffer 
for this rebellion were two captives who had had no part 
in it. Mary, being persuaded that her former lenity had en- 
couraged rebellion, ordered the execution of Lady Jane and 
her young husband, Guilford Dudley, who were beheaded 
Feb. 12, 1554. Jane, with faith unshaken by the priest whom 
the Queen sent to convert her, died with gentle firmness. 
With more justice, Wyatt, as well as the Duke of Suffolk, 
who had been concerned in the insurrection, were put to 
death, and many other rebels shared their fate. The real 
design of the conspirators, it appeared, had been to raise 
to the throne the Lady Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay 



xxx.] THE PERSECUTION. 129 

Earl of Devon, great-grandson of Edward IV., and so both 
were sent to the Tower. Renard, truly considering Elizabeth 
to be a dangerous rival, urged that she should be put to 
death ; but, as there was no evidence against her, she was 
only placed for a time in confinement at Woodstock. Philip 
of Spain came over in July, and the marriage took place. 
He was called King of England so long as the Queen lived, 
but, to the great vexation of himself and his wife, Parlia- 
ment would not consent that he should be crowned, or 
that he should succeed Mary if she died childless. The 
next step after the marriage was to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion with Rome. On the 30th November, 1554, the Lords 
and Commons met at Whitehall, went on their knees, and 
were absolved, together with the whole realm, from heresy 
and schism, by Cardinal Reginald Pole, who had come over 
as the Pope's legate. Yet the triumph was not so complete 
as it seemed. The Lollard statutes indeed were revived, the 
ecclesiastical legislation of Henry VIII. swept away ; but 
the Pope Was obliged to consent that the holders of lands and 
goods taken from the Church should remain in possession. 
Mary herself, more zealous than her subjects, restored 
most of the Church property which was still in the hands of 
the Crown, and re-established some of the old religious 
houses. 

3. The Persecution. — The statutes against heretics were 
not revived for nothing. The fire was first kindled for 
John Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, who had worked upon 
the translation of the Bible ; and, by the end of the reign, 
two hundred persons, or more, men and women, had died at 
the stake. In justice it must be said that most men at this 
time believed it right to punish erroneous opinions — a belief 
which the Romanists had the opportunity of carrying out to 
the full. The English, averse from wholesale slaughter and 
loving courage, were more won to the Protestant causeby these 

T K 



130 MARY. [chap 

spectacles than by any arguments. It had been thought 
by many that the men of the new doctrines had no serious 
convictions ; but proving staunch on trial, they called forth 
a burst of admiration ; while Mary, and Bishop Bonner, 
who was one of the chief persecutors, have come down to 
posterity with the terrible epithet, " bloody," fixed upon them. 
Among the most notable of the martyrs were John Hooper, 
late Bishop of Gloucester, Ridley, late Bishop of London, 
who had preached in defence of the Lady Jane's claim to the 
crown, and the aged Latimer. These last two were burned 
together at Oxford, October 16, 1555, Latimer exhorting his 
companion to " play the man," and saying, " We shall this day 
light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust 
shall never be put out." Archbishop Cranmer, of less firm 
mould than the others, recanted ; but this humiliation did 
not save his life. Being brought to the stake, he abjured his 
recantation, and as an evidence of repentance, thrust the 
hand that had signed it, first into the flame. These were 
leading men, but among the laity the persecution did not 
strike high, labourers, artisans, tradesmen, private gentle- 
men at the most, being the usual victims. 

4. Loss of Calais. — The marriage of Philip and Mary 
was unhappy. They were childless, and though Mary doted 
on her husband, he did not care for her ; she was a small, 
haggard, sickly woman, eleven years older than himself; 
and he had married her only to suit his father's policy. 
England, where he was regarded with suspicion and hatred, 
-/ftered him no attractions ; and when he left it to be- 
come, by the abdication of his father, King of Spain and 
sovereign of the Netherlands, he had little inducement to 
return. After this he only came over once for a few months 
to urge the Queen to join him in war against France ; she 
consented, and the result was disastrous. The Government 
had neglected to repair the defences of Calais, or to keep a 



xxxi.] ELIZABETH. 131 

sufficient garrison in it; and in January 1558 it was taken 
by the French. It was no real loss ; but it was a terri- 
ble blow to English pride, and the Queen is reported to 
have said, " When I die, Calais will be found written on my 
heart." The unfortunate Mary, neglected by her husband, 
broken down in health, and having lost the love of her 
people, died November 17, 1558. Her death was followed 
within twenty-four hours by that of Cardinal Pole. From 
that time the power of Rome in England was at an end. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

i ELIZABETH. 

Elizabeth (1) — the Reformed Church ; Romanists and Puritans ; Ire- 
land (2)— flight of 'Mary Queen of Scots to England ; her captivity 
and death (3) — struggle with Spain; Sir Philip Sidney; naval 
adventurers ; Walter Ralegh; Francis Drake ; defeat of the 
Armada (4) — the Earl of Essex ; rebellion of Tyrone (5) — mono- 
polies (6) — death of Elizabeth (7) — East India Company (8). 

I. Elizabeth, 1558-1603. — Elizabeth was welcomed by all 
when, in her twenty-sixth year, she succeeded to the crown. 
It soon appeared that she intended to support a moderate 
Reformation, although Philip supposed her principles to be 
still so unsettled that, soon after her accession, he offered 
her his hand on condition of her conforming to his Church. 
After some delay she refused him, as indeed in the end she 
did every one of her royal and noble suitors, although she gave 
hopes to many, and was earnestly pressed by Parliament to 
marry. She loved her country, although she had inherited her 
father's imperious and despotic nature ; her chief faults as a 
ruler were irresolution and want of openness ; her private 
K 2 



1 32 ELIZABETH. [chap. 

weaknesses — personal vanity and a desire for flattery — might 
afford food for the ridicule of her enemies, but they did not 
prevent her being a great sovereign. She chose sagacious 
advisers, and, though she made favourites, she never suffered 
them to obtain dominion over her. Her chief minister was 
William Cecil, afterwards Baron Burghley and Lord High 
Treasurer, a wise statesman to whose counsels much of the 
success of her reign is to be attributed. Sir Francis Walsing- 
ham, and Robert Cecil, second son of Lord Burghley, are also 
notable among her advisers. 

2. Religious Affairs. — The Reformed Church of England 
was now firmly established, and the supremacy of the Crown 
was restored by Act of Parliament, though without the title 
of Head of the Church. Almost all Mary's bishops were 
deprived for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, which 
declared the Queen to be supreme governor in all ecclesias- 
tical and spiritual things as well as temporal ; and Bonner 
was kept in prison for the rest of his days. Towards the end 
of 1559 Matthew Parker, a learned and prudent man, was 
consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. The second Prayer- 
book of Edward, with some alterations, was restored, and 
a new Act of Uniformity forbade the use by a minister 
of any other, and imposed a fine on those who absented 
themselves from church. This bore heavily on the Roman 
Catholics, of whom after a while many withdrew beyond sea, 
and became a source of danger to Elizabeth ; while, in 
retaliation, those at home were harassed and persecuted 
under laws of increasing severity. Elizabeth's determination 
to make all her subjects conform to the rites which she 
established, was resisted, not only by the Romanists, but by 
the extreme Protestants, or " Puritans" as they came to be 
nicknamed, from their desiring a simpler and- purer form of 
worship : that is to say, one farther removed from that of 
Rome. Even the Reformation under Edward had not gone 



xxxi.] RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS. 133 

far enough for them, still less this of the Queen, who retained 
ceremonies and practices which gave them great offence. 
The Puritan or non-conformist clergy and their friends did 
not wish to leave the Church, although they strove to mould 
it to their own views, and at last to alter its government, 
for many of them began to disapprove of episcopacy or 
government by bishops. By degrees too they took to 
holding religious meetings of their own. There sprang up 
also in the latter part of the reign a sect afterwards famous 
under the name of Independents, which avowedly separated 
from the Established Church. The chief instrument em- 
ployed to force the Puritans into conformity was the High 
Commission Court, appointed by Elizabeth, under the powers 
of the Act of Supremacy, to inquire into and punish by; 
spiritual censure, fine, imprisonment, and deprivation, here- 
sies, schisms, absence from church, and such like offences. 
Troublesome as the Puritans were to Elizabeth, they were 
staunch in their loyalty ; for it was no time for any Pro- 
testant to be disloyal, when the old faith and the reformed 
were struggling for life or death throughout Europe, and 
Philip, the mightiest prince of the age, was on the side of 
Rome. Elizabeth became the hope of the Reformed, and 
the Puritans forgave her their own wrongs in consideration 
of the help she gave their Protestant brethren in France, 
Scotland, and the Netherlands. In Irelajid similar changes 
were made, but there the Church in its new shape took no 
root, even the settlers of the pale, or English district, being 
little inclined towards it, and scarcely any trouble being 
bestowed upon winning them over, otherwise than by force 
of law. 

3. Mary Stuart. — The person generally looked upon as 
Elizabeth's heir was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots and widow 
of Francis II., King of France. Though left out of Henry the 
Eighth's will (which however some believed not to have 



1 34 ELIZA BE TH. [chap. 

been signed with the King's own hand, and therefore to be 
worthless), she was the nearest heir, being the granddaughter 
of his elder sister Margaret. Some of the Romanists regarded 
her as rightful Queen of England already, and, when she was 
in France, she had taken that title. She was one of the 
most fascinating women that ever lived, but, being a strong 
Roman Catholic, she did not suit the Protestants among her 
people. She also gave them ground to accuse her of great 
crimes, on account of which they forced her to resign her 
crown to her infant son, James VI., in the murder of whose 
father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, she was believed to have 
been an accomplice. They placed her in captivity, from 
which she escaped, and flying to England, threw herself on 
Elizabeth's protection, May 16, 1568. But, contrary to her 
expectation, the English government detained her as a state 
prisoner, in which position she became as dangerous to 
Elizabeth as Elizabeth had once been to her own sister. 
Round the beautiful captive gathered a succession of con- 
spiracies against Elizabeth, formed by Romanist malcontents 
who looked to Spain for help. Thomas Percy and Charles 
Neville, Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, raised 
a Roman Catholic rebellion in the North, which was put 
down with extreme severity. Pope Pius V. in 1570 published 
a bull absolving Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance, 
which in the end did more harm to the Pope's friends than 
to the Queen. Seminary priests (that is, priests from colleges 
established abroad for English Roman Catholics) and Jesuits 
poured into the kingdom, not only to keep up the Romanist 
worship, but, as was generally believed, to stir up their dis- 
ciples against the Queen. Many of these missionaries, after 
being tortured for the purpose of wringing out information, 
were put to the death of traitors. Torture was always 
contrary to law, but it had nevertheless begun to be em- 
ployed in the course of the preceding century, and it was in 



xxxi.] THE STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN. 135 

common use under the Tudors. Meanwhile the Puritans, 
who had a majority in the House of Commons, from which 
Romanists were kept out by the exaction of the oath of 
supremacy from the members, began to call for the death of 
Mary. After she had been about nineteen years a captive, 
a plot, with which Walsingham through spies became early 
acquainted, was formed by Anthony Babington and many 
other young Roman Catholics against Elizabeth's life. 
A statute passed in 1585 had specially provided for the case 
of plots being made on behalf of any person claiming the 
crown, and had prescribed a mode of trial before a com- 
mission of peers, privy councillors, and judges. Mary was 
now charged with being accessory to Babington's plot, and 
was accordingly put on her trial before such a commission. 
She was condemned, and beheaded, Feb. 8, 1587, in the 
hall of Fotheringhay Castle. In the preceding year she had 
sent word to Philip that she had bequeathed her prospective 
rights upon England to him, having set aside her son as 
a Protestant. 

4. The Struggle with Spain. — Philip had at first 
striven to gain Elizabeth's friendship, but the Queen 
being gradually drawn' on by her more Protestant ministers 
and subjects, Spain and England entered upon a course 
of bickering, and underhand acts of hostility : Elizabeth 
aiding Philip's revolted subjects, the Protestants of the 
Netherlands ; Philip encouraging the malcontents both 
in England and Ireland. At last the Queen, having 
openly allied herself with the people of the Nether- 
lands, who had formed themselves into the common- 
wealth of the United Provinces, sent out to their aid an 
expedition, commanded by her favourite, the handsome, 
polished, but worthless Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 
This expedition did not effect anything; an engagement 
before Zutphen is memorable, because it cost the life of Sir 



136 ELIZABETH. [chap. 

Philip Sidney, who was the darling of the nation for his 
talents and his virtues. It is told of him that having left 
the field mortally wounded he asked for some drink. But 
as he lifted the bottle to his lips, he saw a dying soldier, 
who was being carried by, glance wistfully at it. Sidney 
gave it him untasted, saying, " Thy necessity is yet 'greater 
than mine." The strife with Spain was in great measure 
fomented and kept up by a set of men much of the stamp 
of the old sea-kings, a passion for maritime adventure having 
taken possession of England. Martin Frobisher and John 
Davis have left their names to the Straits which they dis- 
covered while seeking for the North-west passage. John 
Hawkins, of Plymouth, was the first Englishman, or nearly 
so, who engaged in the negro-slave trade, in which so little 
shame was seen that the Queen granted him a Moor as his 
crest in memory of it. Walter Ralegh, of Devonshire, one 
of Elizabeth's favourites, attempted, though without success, 
to plant a colony on the coasts of North America ; and by 
his colonists the practice of smoking tobacco was intro- 
duced into England. To Ralegh, according to the common 
tale, belongs the credit of having first planted in Ireland 
the potato, a native production of America. Most famous 
of all is Francis Drake, also of Devonshire, who started 
in life as an apprentice in a Channel coaster. Drake was 
the first man who sailed round the world in one voyage. 
He and most of his fellows were a strange mixture of 
explorer, pirate, and Protestant knight-errant. To spoil and 
burn the Spanish towns in the New World, to waylay and 
capture the gold and silver laden ships that sailed to Spain, 
was at once profitable and virtuous in their eyes. When 
war was openly entered upon, Drake became a regularly 
commissioned officer, and in 1587, when Philip was known 
to be preparing to invade England, he entered Cadiz 
harbour and destroyed the ships and great part of the stares 



xxxi.] THE SPANISH ARMADA. 137 

there ; in his own phrase, he " singed the Spanish King's 
beard." The threatened invasion, however, was actually 
attempted the next year. A mighty naval force, known by its 
Spanish name of Armada, that is, Fleet, was collected at 
Lisbon, and the flower of Spain joined in the enterprise, 
which, being undertaken at the instance of the Pope, Sixties 
v., was looked on as a holy war. Philip's general, A lexander 
Farnese, Duke of Parma, had another fine army ready in 
the neighbourhood of Nieuport and Dunkirk, for whose 
protection on its passage to England the Armada, com- 
manded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was to make its 
way through the Channel to the North Foreland. Charles 
Lord Howard of Effingham commanded the English fleet, 
and with him were Drake, and Hawkins, and Frobisher, and 
others like them. Only some of the vessels belonged to 
the navy ; many were furnished by various cities, merchants, 
and private people. London is said to have supplied 
double the number of ships and men requested of it. Two 
armies were collected, one at Tilbury under Leicester, 
the other to defend the Queen ; and the mass of the 
English Roman Catholics came forward as zealously as any- 
body else, for though they might have invited foreign aid 
for Mary of Scotland's sake, they were not minded deliber- 
ately to make their country over to Philip. On the 19th July, 
Howard, who was at Plymouth, learned that the Armada 
— about a hundred and fifty sail — was off the Cornish coast ; 
and coming out with about sixty or seventy ships, he hung 
upon the enemy's rear, fresh vessels joining him daily until he 
mustered a hundred and forty. Medina Sidonia, fighting as 
he sailed along, anchored on the 27th in Calais roads. To 
drive him out, at midnight on the 28th eight ships were fired, 
and sent drifting with wind and tide among the Spaniards, 
who, seized with a panic, put to sea in disorder. At day- 
break they were attacked by Howard, Drake, and Lord Henry 



17,8 ELIZABETH. [chap. 

Seymour, and though the Spaniards fought gallantly, they 
were completely at disadvantage ; in seamanship and gun- 
practice they were inferior to their adversaries, and their 
floating castles were no match for the active little English 
vessels. Had not the Queen's ill-timed parsimony kept her 
fleet insufficiently supplied with powder, the Armada would 
have been destroyed. As it was, Sidonia fled away north- 
wards, Howard and Drake, with part of the fleet, clinging to 
him till their scanty provisions began to run short. Even 
then the misfortunes of the Armada were only begun ; the 
gale rose to a storm, scattering it about in the seas of Scotland 
and Ireland, which were almost unknown to the Spaniards, 
and only fifty-four vessels lived to creep shattered home. 
The English rejoiced, though modestly, over their success. 
To them and to all Protestants it seemed that Heaven had 
fought for them. 

5. The Earl of Essex. — Leicester dying in the midst of 
the rejoicing, was succeeded in the Queen's favour by Robert 
Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose father, Walter Earl oj 
Essex, is noted for an adventurous but unsuccessful attempt 
to subdue and colonize Ulster. Young Essex, gallant but 
headstrong, acquitted himself brilliantly as the leader of an 
expedition which took the town of Cadis; but he was not 
fitted for the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, to which he 
was appointed that he might subdue the rebel O'Neill, 
Earl of Tyrone. The Queen found fault with his conduct, 
upon which Essex, believing that he was being undermined 
by his rivals at court, and presuming on Elizabeth's fond- 
ness for him, left his post unbidden, and abruptly pre- 
sented himself before her. But Elizabeth, not accepting 
his excuses, sent out Lord Mountjoy to bring Ireland into 
order, and inflicted humiliations upon Essex which his 
haughty spirit could not bear. With a view to removing 
the Queen's advisers by force, he made a wild attempt to 



xxxi.] MONOPOLIES. 



raise an insurrection among the Londoners. He was found 
guilty of treason, and beheaded in 1601, at the age of thirty- 
three. Tyrone, notwithstanding that an armament was sent 
from Spain to his aid, was reduced by Mountjoy to sub- 
mission, and received a pardon. 

6. Monopolies. — A great abuse of the time was the prac- 
tice of the Crown to grant to favoured persons monopolies, 
that is, the exclusive right of dealing in some particular 
article. Thus Essex had had a monopoly of sweet wines, 
and had been much aggrieved when, during his disgrace, 
the Queen had refused to continue it to him, saying that " a 
restive horse must be broken into the ring by stinting him 
of his provender." In 1601 a list of these monopolies was 
read out in Parliament. "Is not bread among the number ? " 
said a member, adding a prediction that at any rate it would 
be there soon. Elizabeth, though imperious, knew how to 
yield gracefully, and seeing what a ferment was being raised, 
she sent word that she would revoke or suspend her ob- 
noxious patents. 

7. Death of Elizabeth. — Queen Elizabeth died at Rich- 
mond, in the seventieth year of her age, March 24, 1603. 
Robert Cecil, her chief minister, affirmed that she declared 
by signs that King James VI. of Scotland should succeed 
her. This is not certain, but at any rate James was pro- 
claimed King of England. 

8. The East India Company. — On the 31st December, 
1600, a Charter of privileges was granted to a recently formed 
company of London merchants trading to the East Indies. 
This was the famous East India Company, and from this 
sprang the British dominion in India. 



140 JAMES I. [chap. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

JAMES I. 

James I. (i) — Ralegh sentenced to death ; imprisonment and death of 
Arabella Stuart (2) — the Puritans ; the Roma?iists ; the Gun- 
powder Plot (3) — James's favourites ; execution of Ralegh ; strife 
between King and Parliament; Bacon; the proposed Spanish 
marriage (4) — death of James ; his children ; Great Britain (5) — ■ 
plantation of Ulster ; baronets (6) — colonies and voyages (7) — 
translations of the Bible (8) — learning and - literature (9) — 
poetry and the drama (10). 

I. House of Stuart. James I., 1603-1625.— According 
to the will of Henry VIII. the crown should have gone to 
the descendants of Mary Duchess of Suffolk, but James VI. 
of Scotland, son of Mary Stuart and her second husband 
Lord Darnley, was the nearest heir by birth, the nation was 
willing to accept him, and after his coronation an Act of 
Parliament was passed declaring his right. His birth being 
the strongest point in his favour, it became his interest to 
encourage the new doctrine of " divine right" that is, the 
belief that an hereditary prince derives his authority from 
Heaven alone, and that therefore no laws can limit it, or 
take it from him. These dignified pretensions accorded 
little with the character and appearance of James ; for he was 
ungainly in person, unkingly in bearing, so timorous that he 
shuddered at a drawn sword ; and though learned, he had 
few qualities of a ruler. He had been brought up a Presby- 
terian, but became attached to the English Church on find- 
ing that its clergy treated him more respectfully than the 
Scots ministers had ever done. " No bishop, no King " was 



THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 



then his phrase, and he soon learned to hate the Puritans, 
thinking them slack friends to monarchy. 

2. Arabella Stuart. — In the first year of this reign, Sir 
Walter Ralegh was condemned to death on a charge of 
having conspired to raise Arabella Stuart, first cousin of 
James, to the throne. He was however reprieved, and 
spent thirteen years as a prisoner in the Tower. Arabella, 
having had no share in the plot, was unmolested until eight 
years later, when she privately married William Seymour, 
a descendant of the Duchess of Suffolk. This union of two 
possible pretenders to the throne gave alarm ; and Arabella 
was illegally shut up in the Tower, where she became insane 
and died. 

3. The Puritans and the Romanists. The Gunpowder 
Plot.— Early in 1604, a conference between dignitaries of 
the Church and leading Puritan divines was held before 
the King at Hampton Court. Some slight alterations were 
made in the Prayer-book, and a new translation of the Bible 
was ordered. This was finished in 161 1, and is still our 
Authorized Version. The Puritans were not satisfied, as 
indeed nothing short of excluding from the Church all doc- 
trines but their own would have satisfied them ; but the way in 
which they were browbeaten by the King and the bishops was 
not likely to soothe them. As for the Roman Catholics, who 
had formed hopes of some indulgence from James, they were 
embittered by fresh severities, for which a fearful vengeance 
was devised. A Romanist gentleman, Robert Catesby, con- 
ceived the plan of blowing up the Parliament House with 
gunpowder on the day — November 5, 1605 — the King was to 
open the session. King, Lords, and Commons thus disposed 
of, Catesby and his confederates were to raise the Romanist 
gentry, and proclaim one of the King's younger children ; 
as the eldest, Prince Henry, would, it was expected, have 
accompanied his father, and perished with him. A cellar 



142 JAMES I. [chap. 

under the House of Lords was hired, and barrels of gun- 
powder there laid, the task of firing the mine being deputed 
to one of the thirteen conspirators, Guido or Guy Faukes, 
a soldier of fortune. Everything was ready, when Lord 
Mounteagle, also a Romanist, was warned by an anonymous 
letter to keep away from Parliament. This he showed to 
Robert Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury ; investigation followed, 
and about midnight, on the eve of the 5th November, Faukes 
was seized in the cellar. On hearing of this, the other con- 
spirators fled, but were soon killed or taken ; the survivors, 
including Faukes, were executed. Catesby's crime bore 
bitter fruit for those he had hoped to serve, as the memory 
of the "Gunpowder Treason" deepened the hatred felt for 
Romanism by the English in general. New and more severe 
laws were made against " Popish recusants," (that is, those 
who refused to come to church), upon whom was imposed 
a new oath of allegiance, renouncing in the strongest terms 
the doctrine that princes excommunicated by the Pope 
might be deposed or murdered by their subjects or others. 
This oath caused a division among the Romanists, some 
taking it, others, at the bidding of the reigning Pope, Paul 
V., refusing to do so. As James was not disposed to perse- 
cution, the laws against the Romanists were, much to the 
dissatisfaction of the Puritans, not always executed. 

4. Government of James. — After the death of Salisbury, 
a Scottish favourite, Robert Carr, created Earl cf Somerset, 
became all-powerful for some years. After him the royal 
favour passed to George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buck- 
ingham, a handsome young Englishman, whom James 
nicknamed " Steenie," and permitted to treat him with 
rude familiarity. Meanwhile the King's rule did not please 
his subjects. His foreign policy was unpopular ; for, in- 
stead of supporting Protestantism abroad, he was on friendly 
terms with Spain. In 1616, Ralegh had been let out of 



xxxii.] GOVERNMENT OF JAMES. 143 

prison with leave to go on an expedition to Guiana, there 
to open a gold mine he averred he knew of. The expedition 
failed ; he came into conflict with the Spaniards, who, not 
without reason, complained of him as a pirate ; and on his 
return he was beheaded, not for any fresh fault he had com- 
mitted, but on his old sentence. The nation was indignant, 
for he was looked on as a sacrifice to the vengeance of Spain. 
Neither did James manage home affairs well ; he was 
ever at variance with his Parliaments, they striving after 
more freedom, he aiming at absolute power. The Parlia- 
ment of 1614 has had the epithet of " addled " fixed upon it, 
because ere it had passed a single Act the King dissolved 
it in anger ; after which he supplied himself with money 
by a "benevolence." In 162 1 a Parliament met which boldly 
attacked abuses and corruption ; the Lord Chancellor, Francis 
Bacon, one of the greatest of English philosophers, was 
charged by it with taking bribes, and thereupon dismissed 
from office with ignominy. But when the Commons ventured 
to touch foreign affairs, the King, telling them not to meddle, 
at once dissolved their House. One of his most unpopular 
schemes was the intended marriage of his son Charles Prince 
of Wales to the Infanta or Princess Maria of Spain. ' The 
Prince, accompanied by the favourite Buckingham, travelled 
in disguise to Madrid to see his intended bride, and a 
marriage treaty was concluded, but, to the great joy of the 
country, it was broken off. 

5. Death of James. — King James died of ague, March 27, 
1625. He was the author of many works in prose and 
verse, notably of a treatise against the practice of smoking 
tobacco. His wife was Anne of Denmark, and his children 
were Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in 161 2 ; 
Charles, who succeeded him ; and Elizabeth, who married 
Frederick V. Elector Palatine. As the insurgent Bohemians 
chose her husband for their King, she is known as the Queen 



144 JAMES I. [chap. 

of Bohemia. James took the title of King of Great Britain, 
and had a national flag devised, on which the crosses of the 
patron saints of England and Scotland, 67. George and St. 
Andrew, were blended — the first " Union Jack; "—but 
England and Scotland, though they had for the time fallen 
to one and the same sovereign, remained otherwise entirely 
separate. 

6. Plantation of Ulster. — A few years after the King's 
accession, the Earl of Tyrone, together with another great 
chieftain of the north of Ireland, Cr Donnel Earl oj 
Tyrconnel, having engaged, or being suspected of having 
engaged, in a conspiracy, fled to foreign parts, and were 
attainted of treason. On their outlawry, and the rebellion 
in 1608 of a third chieftain, O'Dogherty, the greater part of 
Ulster was forfeited to the Crown, which thereupon granted 
out land in it to Scotch and English settlers, and these new- 
comers soon made it the most flourishing district in Ireland. 
The system of " planting " was extended to Leinster ; but, 
with apparent good, much evil was done. Many of the 
native owners were turned out, and several septs, or clans, 
were transplanted to other parts of the island. A sense of 
injustice rankled in the hearts of the Irish ; and they sighed 
for their old lords, tyrants and oppressors though these had 
been. In order, so he professed, to raise funds for the pro- 
tection of the Ulster settlers, James devised a new title of 
honour, that of Baronet, and required of all who received it, 
a sum of money, as much as would support thirty soldiers 
for three years. 

7. Colonies and Voyages. — In 1607, some adventurers 
sent out by a London Company of Merchants founded, in 
Virginia, fames Town, the first permanent settlement of 
Englishmen in North America. In 1620, a number of 
Puritans, who had been driven from England to Holland by 
the laws against non-conformity, sailed from Delft Haven 



xxxii.] TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 145 

for North America, and settled in New England. These 
are the most ancient of those colonies which afterwards, 
throwing off the rule of the mother-country, formed the 
United States of North America. Fresh efforts were made 
in this reign to find a north-west passage. Henry Hudson 
in 1610 sailed through the Strait and discovered the Bay- 
since called by his name. In those seas he perished, for 
his crew, which had suffered much from want of provisions, 
mutinied, and sent him and eight of his followers adrift 
in an open boat. Nothing more was ever heard of 
them. Further discoveries were made by Thomas Button, 
the first navigator who reached the eastern coast of America 
through Hudson's Strait, and by Bylot and Baffin, who dis- 
covered and penetrated to the most northern extremity of 
Baffin's Bay. 

8. Translations of the Bible. — High among the early 
English Reformers stands William Tyndal, who, settling at 
Antwerp, devoted himself to translating the Scriptures, 
which he printed with side-notes and commentaries of his 
own. During the Primacy of Wa?'ham, Crammer's pre- 
decessor, efforts were made to stop the circulation of 
Tyndal's Testament by publicly burning in London all the 
copies which could be bought up— a proceeding which only 
supplied Tyndal with the means of sending forth fresh edi- 
tions. By and by there came a change in England, and 
the Bible which, under Thomas Cromwell's administration, 
was placed in the churches, was a compilation of Tyndal's 
scattered translations, collected, edited, and completed by 
his friend Miles Coverdale. In that same year Tyndal came 
to his end, being put to death near Antwerp as a heretic. 
Coverdale's Bible served as the basis for all succeeding 
translations. Upon this and other versions of the reign 
of Henry VIII. was founded the Bishops' Bible, edited by 
Archbishop Parker ; and although in the preparation of the 

T L 



146 JAMES I. [chap. 

present Authorized Version extraordinary care was bestowed 
upon its translation from the originals, the eminent divines 
employed on the task adhered as closely as possible to the 
language and style of its predecessors. 

9. Learning and Literature. — In the sixteenth century, 
classical learning began to flourish in England, the study of 
the ancient Greek language, till then almost unknown, being 
introduced. William Grocyn, who having acquired a know- 
ledge of Greek in Italy, had begun to teach it at Oxford 
about the end of the preceding century, is honoured as " the 
patriarch of English learning." He and a small knot of 
like-minded men in 15 10 brought over the great scholar of 
the Netherlands, Erasmus, to teach at Cambridge. Thomas 
Li nacre, eminent in medicine, who was the first president 
of the College of Physicians, also held high rank among 
men of learning. Sir Thomas More, a pupil of Grocyn, 
is the author of Utopia, a work in Latin, descriptive of 
an imaginary commonwealth, from which the epithet of 
" Utopian" is now applied to fanciful political schemes. 
Although education was not general, yet in a select circle of 
scholarly taste or exalted rank the standard was high. Lady 
Jane Grey, who spoke, as well as wrote, Greek, Latin, Italian, 
and French, and also understood Hebrew and Arabic, was 
especially renowned for her learning. When found at home 
reading Plato, while the rest of the household were out 
hunting, she accounted for her love of books by saying that 
her parents were so harsh and severe, that she was never 
happy except when with her tutor, who was always gentle 
and pleasant. Henry VIII., himself a good scholar, had 
his children carefully taught. Sir John Cheke, one of the 
tutors of Edward VI., was the first professor of Greek in 
the University of Cambridge. He was a Protestant, but in 
Mary's reign recanted to save himself from burning, and 
pined to death with shame at his own weakness. Queen 



xxxn. ] LEARNING AND LITERATURE. 147 

Elizabeth could speak Greek fairly, Latin fluently, and 
French and Italian as readily as her mother tongue ; and 
these acquirements she kept up after she had ascended the 
throne, reading with her tutor Roger Ascham for some hours 
daily. Among the learned men who graced the reigns of 
Elizabeth and James was William Camden, author of the 
Britannia, a survey of the British Isles written in Latin, 
who founded in the University of Oxford an historical lecture, 
still called after him the Camden professorship. Francis 
Bacon, successively created Baron Verulam and Viscount St. 
Albans, who has already been spoken of as Lord Chancellor 
stands intellectually, though not morally, among the greatest 
of mankind. The philosophical work on which his fame rests 
is in Latin ; but to ordinary readers he is best known by 
his English Essays, a name which he was the first to give to 
that species of composition. The finest of the Elizabethan 
prose authors was Richard Hooker, Master of the Temple, 
who defended the established form of Church government 
against the Puritans. Two of Elizabeth's favourite courtiers 
held literary rank — Sir Philip Sidney, author of the Arcadia, 
a half chivalrous, half pastoral romance, which, though to 
modern taste tedious, was long exceedingly popular ; and 
Sir Walter Ralegh, who, while a prisoner in the Tower, 
employed himself in the laborious undertaking of writing a 
History of the World. This however he never finished. 
Much both of the poetry and prose of the time is deformed 
by a strained and fantastic style, of which the great master 
was Joh?i Lyly, from whose novel of Euphues it has got its 
name of Euphuism. 

10. Poetry and the Drama. — The ill-fated Earl of Surrey, 
who died on the scaffold in 1 547, was the first to introduce 
blank verse. Although he is more to be admired for his 
taste and polish than for genius, he was the leader of a 
school of poets who followed Italian models. Of these 

L 2 



JAMES I. 



was the great Elizabethan poet, Edmund Spenser, author 
of the Faery Queen, a long though unfinished tale of chival- 
rous adventure, veiling a religious and political allegory. The 
age was fertile in poets, and some of the most spirited of 
the English ballads belong to the reigns of the Queen and 
her successor. Dramatic art was now making an advance. Of 
the earliest attempts, the mysteries or miracle plays, we have 
specimens as old as the time of Edward III. These were 
rude representations of Biblical stories, acted in churchyards 
or streets, which, in the days of few books and little general 
education, were thought useful for teaching Scripture history 
to the people. Next came the moral plays or allegorical 
dramas, which, in the time of Henry VIII., were dis- 
tinguished by the introduction of a character called the 
Vice, who played a part much like that of Punch in the 
puppet-shows. The first regular English comedy was com- 
posed probably as early as the reign of Henry VIII., by 
Nicholas Udal, master first of Eton, and afterwards of 
Westminster School, who was wont to write plays for his 
scholars to act. Ralph Roister Doister was the uncouth 
name of this piece, which gave a picture of the manners of 
the London gallants and citizens. Under Elizabeth the taste 
spread, and a school of playwrights sprang up. These 
early dramatists however are almost forgotten, having been 
eclipsed by the glory of William Shakspere, the greatest 
name in English literature. Little is known of his life be- 
yond the mere outline. Born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, 
he became an actor and playwriter, and also held a share 
in the Blackfriars theatre, which was built in 1575. Re- 
tiring in his latter days to his native town, he there died 
in 16 1 6. In the deep knowledge of human nature which his 
dramas display, no other has ever approached him ; and 
he is further distinguished by his healthy moral tone, and 
by the national spirit, ardent though without being narrow, 



xxxiii.] CHARLES I. 149 

which pervades his historical plays. Other dramatists of 
high repute were Benjamin, or, as he is always called, Ben 
Jonson, and Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who 
wrote for the most part in concert, and so identified them- 
selves with each other that it is impossible to distinguish 
their respective shares in the plays bearing their joint names. 
After his comrades death, Fletcher is said to have been 
sometimes assisted by Philip Massinger^ the last of the 
great dramatic poets of the school of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. Massinger died in the reign of 
Charles I. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CHARLES I. 

Charles T. ; Henrietta Maria; Petition of Right ; murder of Buck- 
ingham (1) — Wentworth and Laud ; the Star Cha?7iber (2) — Ship- 
money (3) — the Long Parliament ; beheading of Strafford (4) — 
the Lrish Rebellion ; the Five Members ; the Civil War ; Presby- 
terians and Lndependents ; Oliver Cromwell ; battles of Mars- 
ton Moor and Naseby; Charles given up by the Scots (5) — the 
Covenant ; beheading of Laud (6) — the Army ; second Civil War 
(7)—" Pride's Purge;" the High Court of Justice (8)— trial 
and beheading of the LCing (9) — his children (10). 

I. Charles I., 1625-1649. The Petition of Right. — Shortly 
after his accession the young King married Henrietta Maria, 
daughter of the great Henry IV. of France — an alliance 
which was not liked, as the bride was a Roman Catholic. 
Charles himself, dignified in his bearing, well conducted, 
and religious, was welcomed as a great improvement on 
his predecessor ; but events soon showed that his father's 



150 CHARLES I. [chap. 

maxims of arbitrary authority had sunk deep into his heart. 
The strife between King and Parliament began at once ; for 
while the King wanted money, the Parliament wanted redress 
of grievances and the removal of the favourite Buckingham. 
After dissolving two Parliaments within the space of a year, 
Charles had recourse to arbitrary methods of raising money, 
until a petty war with France so increased his difficulties 
that he had to summon a third Parliament. This, by grant- 
ing him five subsidies, obtained his assent to their Petition 
of Right, by which the recent illegal practices— arbitrary 
taxes and imprisonment, forced billetings of soldiers upon 
the people, exercise of martial law -were condemned (June 
1628). Emboldened by victory, the Commons remonstrated 
against Buckingham as the cause of the national calamities ; 
— words which had a terrible effect, for a few months later 
the Duke was stabbed to death at Portsmouth by one John 
Felton, who thought by this crime to do his country service. 
Despite the Petition of Right, Charles still levied of his sole 
authority certain duties called tonnage and poundage. The 
Commons voted that whoever should pay them should be 
accounted an enemy to the liberties of England, and upon 
this the King again dissolved Parliament. Some of the 
members were sent to prison, where one of the most dis- 
tinguished among them, Sir John Eliot, died. 

2. Wentworth and Laud. — Charles, now resolving to 
govern without parliaments, found two ministers to serve his 
purpose — Thomas Viscount Wentworth, and William Land, 
Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. 
These two laboured zealously together to make their master 
absolute — a scheme which they spoke of among themselves 
by the term of " Thorough" Wentworth was first made 
President of the Council of the North, a tribunal which 
had been set up by Henry VIII. after the putting down of 
the insurrection of 1536. Lord Wentworth now obtained 



xxxin.] SHIP-MONEY. 15 1 

for it almost boundless power over the northern counties ; 
then he was removed to Ireland, which he governed on 
equally despotic principles ; while Laud devoted himself 
to forcing the Puritans into conformity to the Church. 
Ready instruments were found in the High Commission and 
Star Chamber courts, the latter being a court of members of 
the King's council which had by degrees usurped a power of 
punishing anything that could be called a contempt of the 
King's authority. Neither of these courts had been invented 
by Charles, but, extensive as their power had been before his 
accession, they now stretched it still further, and became 
still more harsh and inquisitorial. Puritans who had written 
books held libellous were objects of special rigour, and 
the Star Chamber, not content with fine and imprisonment, 
inflicted cruel and shameful punishments, which only served 
to excite admiration for the fortitude of the victims and 
hatred of the Government. 

3. Ship-Money. — Meanwhile, after various devices for 
raising a revenue had been resorted to, a levy of "ship- 
money " (so called because it was professedly for the sup- 
port of a fleet), which in former days had been occasionally 
levied in time of war in the maritime counties, was made 
upon every shire. John Hampdeu, a country gentleman 
of Buckinghamshire, refused, as did also some others, to 
pay his share. On the matter being tried, the majority 
of the judges decided against him ; but the arguments in 
favour of the lawfulness of the tax were so weak, that 
Charles lost more than he gained by his victory, whi]e 
Hampden's courage raised him high in the estimation of 
his countrymen. 

4. The Long Parliament.— In 1637, the year in which the 
decision in favour of ship-money was given, the Scots were 
driven into rebellion by an attempt to force upon them a 
liturgy like that of England. Charles, in 1639, marched 



152 CHARLES I. [chap. 

against the insurgents, but, unable to do anything with an 
empty treasury and disaffected troops, he was reduced to 
patch up a treaty. In hopes of obtaining money, he called, 
early in 1640, a Parliament, which he soon dissolved ; but 
by the renewal of the Scottish war and the invasion of Eng- 
land by a Scottish army, he was that same year constrained 
to summon another, since famed as " the Long Parliament? 
By the Commons, Wentworth, now Earl of Strafford, and 
Laud were at once impeached of treason. Strafford was 
brought to trial, but after some time the Commons changed 
their course, and a bill of attainder was passed, to which 
Charles in tears gave his assent. The foremost in these 
proceedings was the great orator Jolm Pym, one of the 
leaders of the popular party. Strafford was beheaded May 
1 2th, 1 64 1, and with him fell the system of government he 
had endeavoured to establish. The Star Chamber, the High 
Commission, and the Council of the North were abolished, 
and the levies of ship-money were declared to have been 
illegal. The Parliament also secured itself by an Act pro- 
viding that it should not be dissolved without its own 
consent. 

5. The Civil War. — Although Charles had now yielded so 
much that many began to turn towards him, he was still 
mistrusted by the Puritan party. When, in the autumn ot 
1 64 1, the Irish rose in rebellion and slaughtered the Ulster 
colonists, some suspected, though unjustly, that Charles had 
himself stirred up this outbreak, which soon became a general 
insurrection of the Irish Roman Catholics. The King's own 
violence was his ruin. Attended by armed men, he went to 
the House of Commons, there to seize Hampden, Pym, and 
three other leading members of the Opposition, whom he 
had charged with treason. Warning having been timely con- 
veyed, the accused had withdrawn, and thus his attempt 
failed. Six days later Charles fled from London, and after 



xxxiii.] THE CIVIL WAR. 153 

his refusal to comply with the Parliament's new demand that 
the control of the militia should be given up to it, men saw 
plainly that a civil war was at hand. Sir John HotJiam, 
governor of the strong town of Hull, where there was a large 
magazine of arms, shut its gates against the King when he 
demanded admittance ; and his conduct was approved by 
the Parliament, which proceeded to call out the militia. 
Several moderately disposed members of the Lords and 
Commons withdrew to the King ; both parties made ready 
to draw the sword, and on the 22nd August, 1642, Charles 
set up his standard at Nottingham, and called on his sub- 
jects to rally round him. The two parties in this struggle are 
distinguished as Royalists and Parliamentarians, or more 
familiarly as Cavaliers and Roundheads. The last name 
is said by some to have been given because the extreme 
Puritans cropped their hair short, in opposition to the pre- 
vailing fashion of wearing it long. Robert Earl of Essex, 
son of Elizabeth's favourite, took command of the Parliament 
army, and opposed the King in person at Edgehill in War- 
wickshire, where, on the 23rd October, an indecisive battle, 
the first important action of the war, was fought. On the 
whole, things at first looked well for the King, whose cavalry 
gained many successes. Their leader, Pf'ince Rupert, a son 
of the Queen of Bohemia, was the terror of the Parliament's 
raw levies ; 'but he was rash and headlong, and his habits 
of plunder brought discredit on his party. With artillery and 
ammunition Charles was ill provided, though the Queen, then 
in Holland, procured what she could with funds obtained 
by the sale of her own and the crown jewels. In February 
1643 she arrived with four ships, and landed at Bridlington, 
where the parliamentary admiral Batten fired so hotly upon 
the house in which she was lodged, that she had to take 
shelter in a neighbouring ditch. In June, the same year, 
the noble and blameless Hampden, one of the best of the 



154 CHARLES I. [chap. 

Parliament officers, was mortally wounded in a skirmish with 
Rupert at Chalgrove. Another man of note, of the opposite 
party, perished not long afterwards in the battle of Newbury. 
This was Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland, who, though he 
had withstood the King in the days of his misgovernment, 
nevertheless took up arms in his defence. To Falkland, 
whose one prayer was for peace, and who was often heard to 
exclaim that the war was breaking his heart, death came as 
a relief. About this time the Parliament entered into alliance 
with the Scots, who in the beginning of 1644 sent an army to 
its aid. Charles meanwhile made a truce with the insurgent 
Romanists in Ireland in order that he might bring over 
troops from that country, and summoned those of the Peers 
and Commons who adhered to his party to meet in Parlia- 
ment at Oxford, where they accordingly assembled. In the 
Parliament at Westminster, men of Presbyte?'ian opinions 
had hitherto been the prevailing party, but in the army the 
sect of the Independents was gaining power. Both were 
opposed to episcopacy or prelacy j but there they ceased to 
agree. The Presbyterians had a regular system of church 
government by councils of ministers and elders ; while the 
Independents looked on every congregation as an inde- 
pendent church, competent to direct itself without inter- 
ference from any other power. To these latter belonged the 
most vigorous of the Roundhead officers, Oliver Cromwell^ 
a Huntingdonshire gentleman, who raised among the Puritan 
freeholders of his county a famous regiment of horse, known 
as the Ironsides. After the battle of Marston Moor, July 2, 
1644, in which the Royalists were defeated by the allied 
English and Scots, and Cromwell's men distinguished them- 
selves, the Independents in Parliament obtained the entire 
remodelling of the army, Essex being replaced by Sir 
Thomas Fairfax, who had shared in the glory of Marston 
Moor, with Cromwell as his second. The " new-model army " 



xxxiii.] RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS. 155 



inflicted another defeat upon the Royalists at Naseby, June 
14, 1645, so crushing as to render the King's cause thence- 
forth hopeless. Charles kept up the struggle till the following 
spring, when, in despair, he surrendered himself to the Scots 
army before Newark, and by it was subsequently delivered 
up to its ally the English Parliament. 

6. Religious Affairs. — During the war, the Houses had 
bound themselves in a "solemn league and covenant" to 
endeavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy. This cove- 
nant—the condition upon which they had obtained the aid 
of the Scots Presbyterians, whose hearts were set upon 
establishing in England their own form of church govern- 
ment, — they ordered to be subscribed by all men in office 
and all beneficed clergy and generally by the whole nation. 
On non-compliance, numbers of clergymen were turned 
out of their livings. By an ordinance of Parliament, as the 
Acts of the two Houses were called, the aged Laud, who 
since his impeachment had lain apparently forgotten in the 
Tower, was condemned for high treason, and beheaded 
January 10, 1645 — an act of needless revenge, which did 
the Presbyterian party no credit. The use of the Church 
Liturgy, even in private families, was forbidden; and epi- 
scopacy gave place to the Presbyterian system, which 
however, owing to the rise of the Independents, was never 
fully established except in Middlesex and Lancashire. 
Large domains belonging to the Bishops and the Crown 
were seized and sold, and heavy fines were laid on the 
vanquished Cavaliers. 

7. The Army. — The King remained a state prisoner at 
Holmby House, near Northampton, formore than four months. 
He was then carried off by Joyce, a cornet of Fairfax's guard, 
to the army, which consisting mainly of Independents, and 
objecting to have Presbyterianism forced upon it, was now 
the rival, not the servant, of Parliament. Charles, filled with 



156 CHARLES I. 



hope by the disunion of his adversaries, negotiated with all 
parties, trying to play off one against the other. Meanwhile, 
the fiercer spirits among the soldiers became so violent 
against him, that at last, alarmed for his life, he made his 
escape from Hampton Court, where he had been lodged, but, 
not knowing whither to go, threw himself into the power of 
Colonel Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight, by whom 
he was confined in Carisbrooke Castle, from which he after- 
wards made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. This was 
shortly before the outbreak of a second Civil War in 1648, 
when Royalist risings took place in Wales and various parts 
of England ; and a Scottish army made up of Royalists and 
moderate Presbyterians, and led by the Duke of Hamilton, in- 
vaded England on his behalf. But all these attempts were 
put down by the energy of Fairfax and Cromwell, the latter 
of whom routed the Scots in the battle of Preston. 

8. " Pride's Purge." — Frightened at the temper of the 
army, the Parliament, though offering the most rigorous 
terms, sought a treaty with the King, with whom they carried 
on lengthened negotiations at Newport. But the army had 
other views. Charles was removed by soldiers to Hurst 
Castle, and as the Parliament seemed likely to come to an 
agreement with him, it was " purged," — that is, the entrance 
to the House being barred by Colonel Pride with a regiment 
of foot, more than a hundred members opposed to the army 
party were thus shut out. Thus "purged," the Commons, 
or rather the remains of them, voted that the King should 
be brought to trial for treason against the Parliament. The 
Lords refusing to concur, the Commons voted that the 
supreme authority resided in themselves, and had the House 
of Lords closed. For the King's trial a so-called High Court 
of Justice was appointed. The best known of its members 
are Cromwell, his son-in-law Henry Ireton, and the President 
of the Court, John Bradshaw. 



xxxiii.] TRIAL AND DEATH OF CHARLES. 157 

9. Trial and Death of Charles. — On the 20th January, 
1649, the King was brought from St. James's Palace before 
the High Court in Westminster Hall. Charles, bearing 
himself with kingly firmness and dignity, refused to acknow- 
ledge the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Marks of public sym- 
pathy for him were not wanting, and the soldiers' shouts of 
"Justice !" "Execution !" were mingled with counter-cries of 
" God save the King I" On the last day of the trial, Charles 
requested a conference with the Lords and Commons, but was 
refused, and sentence of death was pronounced upon him, 
as "a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good 
people of the nation." The names of fifty-nine members 
of the Court were subscribed to the warrant of execution. 
Charles resigned himself to his fate with calmness, taking 
a tender farewell of his young children, the Princess Eliza- 
beth, aged thirteen, and Henry Duke of Gloucester, who 
was but eight. The rest of his time was spent at his devo- 
tions, in the company of Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, by 
whom he was attended on the scaffold before Whitehall, 
where he was beheaded, January 30. A few faithful adherents 
followed him to his grave in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. 
Within two days of the funeral, the House of Lords and the 
office of King were abolished by votes of the Commons. By 
taking the life of Charles his enemies in reality exalted his 
fame. The execution of a King was a thing hitherto unheard 
of, and Royalist and Presbyterian alike stood aghast. The 
mass of his subjects, forgetting his misgovernment and per- 
fidy, only remembered that he had been illegally condemned, 
and that free institutions seemed to have fallen with him. 
The Church, which throughout his many negotiations with 
the Puritans he had ever striven to maintain, styled him 
Martyr, and the Cavaliers well-nigh worshipped his memory. 

10. Children of Charles. — Of the children of Charles, his 
eldest sons, Charles Prince of Wales, born 1630, and James 



158 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

Duke of York, born 1633, each in turn became King. Mary 
married Prince William of Nassau, Stadholder of Holland, 
and her son was afterwards King William III. of England. 
Elizabeth and Henry Duke of Gloucester, who were in the 
power of the Parliament, were treated after their father's 
death like the children of a private gentleman. Elizabeth 
died in 1650 in Carisbrooke Castle, where she had been 
placed together with her brother Henry, who, two years later, 
was permitted to join his family abroad. He died soon after 
the Restoration. Henrietta Maria^ born 1644, married Philip 
Duke of Orleans. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE COMMONWEALTH. 

The Commonwealth (1) — the Irish War {2)— War with Scotland ; 
battles of Dunbar and Worcester ; escape of Charles (3) — the Dutch 
War (4)— the Long Parliament turned out by Cromwell ; the 
Little Parliament (5) — the Protectorate ; Oliver Cromwell ; offer of 
the Crown; " Oliver's Lords" (6)— -foreign affairs (7)— death of 
Cromwell (8)— religious affairs ; the Quakers (9) — Richard Crom- 
well '(10) — General Monk; final dissolution of 'the Long Parliament 
{ll)— Restoration of the King ; character of the Puritans (12). 

I. The Commonwealth, 1649 -1660. — The House of 
Commons, such as it was, had now become the ruling power, 
and by it a Council of State, of which Bradshaw was presi- 
dent, was appointed to carry on the government. The Duke 
of Hamilton, together with two Royalist noblemen taken in 
the recent risings, was beheaded ; and England was declared 
a Commonwealth^ to be governed without King or Lords. 



xxxiv.] IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. 159 

Some voices however raised the complaint that the new 
government was worse than the old ; and in the army these 
malcontents — called " Levellers" because they held, or were 
classed by their enemies with those who held, that all degrees 
of men should be levelled, or placed on an equality as to 
rank and property — broke out into a mutiny, which was 
swiftly crushed by Cromwell. 

2. Ireland. — Young Charles, who was regarded as King 
by every Royalist, was an exile abroad. His chief hopes lay 
in Ireland, where James Butler, Marquess of Ormond, the 
Royalist Lord-Lieutenant, gathered round him everyone, 
whether Romanist insurgent, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, 
who would fight for the King. Against these the Parlia- 
ment sent out, as their Lord-Lieutenant, Cromwell, who by 
dint of unsparing severity well-nigh subdued the country in 
nine months, leaving Ireton to carry on his work. Under 
the rule of the Commonwealth, permission was given to the 
defeated Romanist leaders and their followers to enter the 
service of foreign states ; many of the Irish were shipped to 
the West Indies ; large confiscations of land were made, and 
many of the old proprietors were " transplanted " to lands 
assigned them in Connaught and Clare, while English " ad- 
venturers " (men who, upon the outbreak of the rebellion, 
had advanced money for quelling it, in consideration of 
forfeited lands to be allotted to them) and parliamentary 
soldiers were settled upon districts in Munster, Leinster, 
and Ulster. In short, the country was completely conquered. 

3. War with Scotland. — Scotland, where Charles had ar- 
rived, and was accepted as King, was next invaded by Crom- 
well, who, attacking the Scots general Lesley at Dunbar, 
Sept. 3, 1650, totally routed him. In the course of the next 
year, whilst Cromwell was still engaged in Scotland, Charles 
and his army, suddenly crossing the Border, pushed as far 
as Worcester, where he was overtaken by Cromwell, and de- 



160 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

feated on the anniversary of Dunbar. The Parliament had 
declared the adherents of Charles rebels and traitors, and 
as such three of the most distinguished of the prisoners 
suffered death. A reward of a thousand pounds was offered 
for the apprehension of Charles, who, having made his 
escape from the field, went through a succession of hazard- 
ous adventures, during which he entrusted himself to more 
than forty persons, none of whom ever failed in fidelity or 
caution. The Penderells, Roman Catholic labouring men, 
living at or about Boscobel in Shropshire, were the chief 
agents in his concealment. At one time, with hair cut short, 
and dressed as a peasant, he lay hidden in Boscobel wood ; 
at another, shrouded in the thick leaves of a great oak-tree, 
he watched in security the Parliament soldiers hunting up 
and down in search of fugitives. Having walked till he was 
footsore, he was glad, when he at last left Boscobel House 
for Moseley, the abode of a Roman Catholic gentleman, to 
ride the horse of the miller, Humfrey Penderell, who, to 
Charles' complaint of its jolting pace, replied that he must 
remember it was carrying the weight of three kingdoms. 
Moseley he left in the disguise of servant to a gentlewoman, 
Jane Lane, who rode behincVhim on a pillion, as the manner 
then was for ladies to travel. Finally he and his friend Lord 
Wilmot sailed in a collier vessel from Brighton, then a 
small fishing town. He was recognized by the master, who. 
however said he would venture life and all for him ; and 
thus, after so many perils, Charles landed safely in Nor- 
mandy. The war in Scotland was carried on by one of 
Cromwell's officers, General George Monk, who brought the 
country under the authority of the English Parliament. 

4. The Dutch War. — In 1652 a war broke out with Hol- 
land, memorable as a trial of strength between Admiral 
Robert Blake, and the great Dutch seamen Martin Tromp 
and Michael de Ruyter. Once, after worsting Blake in 



xxxiv.] EXPULSION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 161 

the Downs, Tromp, it is said, sailed through the Channel 
with a broom at his mast-head, to signify that he would 
sweep the seas of the English — an insult which was after- 
wards avenged in three stubborn contests. Blake however, 
owing to ill-health, was not in the last of these battles, 
fought in July 1653, in which Tromp fell. One of the 
commanders of the English fleet was General Monk ; for in 
those days the naval and military services were not kept 
separate. Peace was made with Holland the next year, 
after the Parliament had ceased to rule. 

5. Expulsion of the Long Parliament. — While this war 
was ' going on, the government was again changed ; for 
the rivalry between the Parliament — or " the Rtimp" as the 
remnant of the House of Commons was contemptuously 
called— and the army had ended in the triumph of the latter. 
On the 20th April, 1653, the Lord General Cromwell entered 
the House, and, after bitterly upbraiding the members, 
called in two files of musketeers, and pointing to the mace, 
the symbol of authority, bade a soldier " take away that 
bauble." He then turned out all the members, and locked 
the doors. Having thus made himself master of England, 
his desire appears to have been to restore the old constitu- 
tion, with himself for King. But he found a check upon his 
wishes in the army. This Puritan body, combining perfect 
discipline with burning religious zeal, was unlike any ordinary 
military force. Officers and soldiers prayed and preached 
together : the troops lived, said a foreigner, " as if they were 
societies of monks." These men were proud of their 
general, in whom they saw the union of soldiership and 
sanctity carried to perfection ; and most of them were willing 
that he should be head of the State, though the name 
of King was hateful to them. Cromwell therefore contented 
himself with forming a Council, and then summoned divers 
persons by name to serve in Parliament. This assembly 

T m 



162 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

was by many called " the Little Parliament" and by the 
Cavaliers, " Praise-God Barebone's Parliament," after the 
quaint name of one of its members. In a few months' time, 
a majority of the members surrendered their powers to 
Cromwell, who thereupon took the title of Lord Protector 
of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland 
(December 16, 1653). 

6. The Protectorate. Oliver Cromwell, 1653-1658. — With 
few friends except among the soldiers, the Protector had 
for enemies, not only the Royalists, but also the Republicans, 
who looked upon him as the destroyer of the Commonwealth. 
In the beginning of 1655, a Republican plot and a Royalist 
insurrection were alike crushed, the Republicans being 
leniently treated, but not so the Cavaliers, some of whom 
were executed, and others sold for slaves in the West Indies. 
Many other schemes were formed for the Protector's over- 
throw, and even for his assassination ; but he kept himself 
well informed of all that was going on, and his rule was 
too strong and vigilant to be shaken off. The Protector's 
first Parliament, of Commons only, questioned his authority, 
and was dissolved by him in anger. The next Parliament 
proposed that he should take the title of King, which he 
would probably have gladly done ; but a number of the officers 
of the army, and others who were in favour of a Common- 
wealth, opposed it so strongly that he thought it better to 
refuse. Almost all the old forms of the constitution were 
however restored under new names. The Protector was en- 
throned with all but kingly pomp in Westminster Hall, and 
there were again to be two Houses of Parliament. The 
" Other House," as the Commons called it, was to be a 
House of Lords, but it proved a failure. A few of the old 
nobles were invited, who almost all kept aloof; members of 
the Protector's Council, officers, and others, mostly taken 
fro n the House of Commons, made up the rest. But the 



xxxiv.] THE PROTECTORATE. 163 

Commons made such difficulties about giving them the 
title of Lords, that Cromwell dissolved the Parliament, 
February 4, 1658. As Scotland and Ireland were now 
united with the English Commonwealth, representatives 
from those countries sat in the Parliaments of the Protec- 
torate. The English rule in Scotland was maintained by an 
army of ten thousand men under the command of Monk. 

7. Foreign Affairs. — Whatever might be thought of the 
Protector's home rule, the glory of his foreign policy dazzled 
even his opponents. Under him England became one of 
the most formidable powers in Europe ; and France, Spain, 
and Holland alike courted his friendship. Blake, upholding 
everywhere the honour of the English flag, enforced repara- 
tion for damage to the English commerce from the Duke 
of Tuscany, and chastised the pirates of Barbary. In 1655 
the West Indian possessions of Spain were attacked, and 
the island of Jamaica, then belonging to that country, was 
taken by the Protector's forces. Two years later, the daring 
Blake fought his last fight, attacking and burning, under a 
tremendous fire from the batteries on shore, the Spanish 
treasure-ships in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. 
Blake did not live to receive the applause of his country- 
men ; he died within sight of Plymouth, August 17, 1657. 
Cromwell, taking Queen Elizabeth as his model, also made 
himself the protector of the Reformed faith throughout 
Europe, and interfered to check the Duke of Savoy's op- 
pression of the Vaudois, or Protestants of Piedmont. In the 
last year of his rule, he gave the country a compensation for 
the still regretted Calais, the town of Dunkirk being taken 
from the Spaniards in 1658 by the allied English and French 
forces, and retained by England. 

8. Death of the Protector. — Oliver, who was in ill-health, 
did not long survive the death of his favourite daughter, Eli- 
zabeth Claypole. He died of ague, on his " Fortunate Day," 

M 2 



164 THE COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, Sept. 3, 1658. 
He left two sons, Richard and Henry, the elder of whom 
was proclaimed Protector, his father, on his deathbed, having 
been understood to name him for his successor. The cha- 
racter of Oliver Cromwell is still a subject of dispute. Royal- 
ists, Presbyterians, and Republicans joined in denouncing 
him as a hypocrite ; yet there are grounds for considering him 
a sincere enthusiast. His genius cannot be doubted. For 
the first forty years of his life he never saw war, yet he proved 
a great general ; bred in a private station, he became a 
great prince, even his enemies admitting that he bore himself 
with dignity. His power and wisdom extorted an unwilling 
admiration, and in after days, when a foreign fleet insulted 
our shores, nvn looked back with something of regret to 
the mighty Oliver, who "made all the neighbour princes 
fear him." 

* 9. Religious Affairs. — During this period arose the sect 
of the Quakers, as the world in general called them, or 
Friends, as they called themselves, founded by George Fox, 
son of a weaver. They were at first looked on with scorn, 
and were much harassed, though the Protector, tolerant by 
inclination, treated Fox kindly. The fallen Church of 
England was, on the whole, not very harshly dealt with, 
while freedom was allowed to the various Puritan sects, 
none being suffered to oppress the others. Even the Jews 
wjere allowed to build a synagogue in London. 

10. The Protectorate. Richard Cromwell, 1658-1659. — - 
Great was the vexation of the Royalists on finding that 
Richard Cromwell took his place as quietly as any rightful 

King. Gentle, docile, and of ordinary abilities, the young 
man had made no enemies ; but the army scorned the rule 
of one who had never distinguished himself in war. After 
eight months, the malcontent officers recalled the "Rump" 
to power, and Richard, without a struggle, gave up his office, 



xxxiv.] THE RESTORATION. 165 

and retired into private life, whither he was followed by his 
brother Henry, who, during the Protectorate, had governed 
Ireland with ability. 

11. General Monk. — The Rump was no sooner restored 
than its quarrel with the army began again, and in a few 
months it was expelled by the leader of the military party, 
General John Lambert, who thought himself a second Oliver 
Cromwell. But Monk, the commander of the English army 
in Scotland, refusing to acknowledge the government set up 
by the officers in London, marched with his forces towards 
England, and fixed his head-quarters at Coldstream on the 
Tweed, in memory of which one of the regiments which com- 
posed his vanguard is still called the Coldstream Guards. 
At this news, the people at once broke out against the new 
government, and refused to pay taxes ; the fleet at the same 
time sailed up the Thames, and declared for the Parliament. 
Lambert, who had- march e .1 to the north to stop Monk, was 
forsaken by his soldiers; and Monk, the ruler of the hour, en- 
tered London, February 3, 1660. Cold and silent, he for some 
days let not a word fall that could betray his real intentions, 
but at last he declared for a free parliament ; — an announce- 
ment which was received with every mark of joy, amidst the 
ringing of bells and the blaze of bonfires. The Presbyterian 
members, who had been " purged " out by Pride, again took 
their seats, and Parliament, after issuing writs for a general 
election, decreed its own dissolution, March 16. Thus ended 
that famous " Long Parliament " which, twice expelled and 
twice restored, had existed for twenty years. 

12. The Restoration. — The new Parliament, or rather 
Convention, for, not having been summoned by the King, 
it was not in law a parliament, met April 25, the Peers 
now returning to their House. Monk meanwhile had been 
in secret communication with the exiled Charles, who issued 
from Breda a declaration to his " loving subjects," wherein 



1 66 CHARLES II. [chap 

he promised pardon for past offences to all, " excepting only 
such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by Parliament," 
and also " a liberty to tender consciences." On the 8th May, 
seven days after this declaration was received Charles II. was 
proclaimed King, and the fleet having been sent to convoy 
him from Holland to Dover, he made his entry into London, 
May 29, in the midst of almost universal rejoicing. On his 
road he passed the Commonwealth army, drawn up on 
Blackheath to give a reluctant welcome to the King 
whom they abhorred. Thus fell the Puritans, a class who 
rendered great political service to their country, and who 
were at first much to be respected for their conscientious 
devotion to what seemed to them to be right. But they 
committed the error of trying to make all men religious afte» 
their own pattern. The Long Parliament suppressed public 
amusements, ordered Christmas to be kept as a fast-day, 
and assigned punishments of unprecedented severity to 
breaches of private morality. Religion, or the appearance 
of it, was made a necessary qualification for office ; and the 
result was that the name of Puritan became synonymous 
with that of hypocrite, and the unnatural restraint of the 
Commonwealth was succeeded at the Restoration by an 
outbreak of profligacy. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

CHARLES II 

Charles II (1) — the Convention Parliament (2) — the Noncotif or mists 
(3)— Ireland (4) — the King^s marriage; Tangier; Bombay; 
sale of Dunkirk [$)—the Plague Year {6)— the Great Fire (7) 
— the Dutch War (8)— fall of Clarendon ; the Triple Alliance, 



xxxv.] THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT. 167 

Treaty of Dover; the Cabal (9) — the Popish Plot (10)— Habeas 
Corpus Act (it) — Whig and Tory; the Dukes of York at: A 
Monmouth; the Whig Plots ; death of Charles (12). 

1. House of Stuart. Charles II., 1660-1685. — Charles II. 

began his reign with everything in his favour. No measure was 
ever more acceptable to the nation than was the Restoration ; 
no conditions were made with him, no new restrictions laid 
upon him ; the year of his return was styled, not the first but 
the twelfth of his reign, which was thus reckoned to have 
begun from the time of his father's death. Unfortunately 
Charles had few qualities which merited the love bestowed 
upon him. He had talents, easy good-temper, and the man- 
ners of an accomplished gentleman, but neither heart nor 
principles. So far as he had any religion, he was secretly 
a Roman Catholic ; but the main object of his life was to be 
amused and to avoid trouble. 

2. The Convention Parliament. — The Convention Parlia- 
ment — for by its first statute it declared itself to be a par- 
liament — passed an Act of Indemnity by which the promised 
general pardon was granted ; most of the late King's judges 
were excepted from its benefits. Of these regicides thirteen 
were executed, and others were left in prison for life. The 
bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were, on the next 
anniversary of the late King's death, dragged out of their 
tombs at Westminster, and hanged on the gallows at Tyburn. 
The Act of Indemnity however was far from pleasing the 
distressed Cavaliers, who found that it barred them from 
legal remedy for their losses during the late troubles, and 
their feelings were consequently very bitter. The Parliament 
also abolished the now useless and oppressive tenures by 
knight service, and deprived the King of the prerogative 
of purveyance and pre-emption. In compensation, he 
received an excise upon beer, a tax first introduced by 
the Long Parliament. The army was disbanded as soon 



1 68 CHARLES II. [chap. 

as possible ; and if Parliament had had its wish, there would 
have been no military force except the militia ; but Charles 
gradually contrived to spare enough from his revenue to form, 
and to maintain, though without the sanction of law, a small 
standing army. 

3. The Nonconformists. — In the new Parliament, which 
met May 1661, the Cavalier party had completely the upper 
hand. The Corporation Act 'was passed, by which every officer 
of a corporation was required to communicate according to 
the rites of the Church of England, and to swear his belief 
that taking arms against the King was in all cases unlawful. 
The Bishops were restored to their seats in the House of 
Lords ; and the Liturgy was revived. A stringent Act of 
Uniformity, requiring all persons holding ecclesiastical pre- 
ferment to declare their assent to everything contained in the 
Book of Common Prayer (which had been recently revised), 
drove about two thousand ministers from their benefices, as 
the Royalist incumbents had been turned out before them. 
This was followed at intervals by harsh Acts against the 
Nonconformists and their religious meetings. Charles, for 
the sake of the Roman Catholics, was himself not inclined 
to be hard upon nonconformity ; but his motive was sus- 
pected. In 1673, he felt constrained to give his assent to the 
Test Act, which, though it was aimed in particular at the 
Romanists, shut out the Protestant Nonconformists also ; 
one immediate effect was to oblige the King's brother, James 
Duke of York, who had by that time avowed himself a Papist, 
to resign his place of Lord High Admiral. Under this Act, 
all persons holding civil or military office were required to 
take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, to subscribe a 
declaration against transubstantiation (the distinguishing 
doctrine of the Church of Rome upon the Eucharist), and to 
communicate according to the Anglican rite. 

4. Ireland. — In the other parts of the British Islands the 



xxxv.] THE PLAGUE YEAR. 169 

royal authority was re-established without difficulty. Scot- 
land became again a separate kingdom ; in Ireland, the 
Church was restored, and a parliament proceeded to settle 
the conflicting claims of the dispossessed Royalists and 
Romanists on the one side, and of the adventurers and 
soldiers, Cromwell's colonists, on the other. After long 
wrangling, the Cromwelhans gave up a third of their 
gains ; but numbers of Irish claimants who protested, 
truly or untruly, that they had had no share in the rebellion 
of 1 641, obtained neither restitution nor compensation, and 
raised bitter complaints. 

5. Tangier, Bombay, and Dunkirk. — In 1662, Charles 
married the Infanta of Portugal, Katharine of Braganza, 
receiving as part of her dowry the fortress of Tangier in 
Africa and the island of Bombay in India. Tangier was 
abandoned before the end of the reign as worthless ; Bombay 
after a short time was made over to the East India Com- 
pany. In the above-mentioned year, Dunkirk was sold to 
Louis XIV. King of France, a transaction which roused 
general indignation, the more so as it was believed that 
the motive was the gaining funds to keep up a profligate 
court. 

6. The Plague Year. — In 1665, during an unusually hot 
and dry summer, the Plague broke out in London with a 
fury such as had not been known for three centuries. Most 
of the rich, the Court among the first, fled from the stricken 
city ; the stout-hearted Monk, whose services in the Re- 
storation had gained him the title of Duke of Albemarle, re- 
mained as the sole representative of government, although, as 
he said, he should have thought himself much safer in action 
against the Dutch. The shops were shut up, the grass grew 
in the streets ; rows of houses stood empty, or marked on the 
doors with a red cross and the words, " Lord have mercy 
on us/' — the sign that the pestilence was within. By winter 



I7 o CHARLES II. [chap. 

time the worst was over ; but in these six months it is said 
that more than 100,000 people perished. 

7. The Great Fire of London. — Hardly had London re- 
covered from the scourge of plague when another evil befell it. 
On the 2nd September, 1666— the Annus Mira&iiis, or " Year 
of Wonders" as the poet Dryden named it— an accidental 
fire broke out in Pudding Lane, near Fish Street. The 
neighbouring houses, being of wood, quickly caught the 
flames which, driven by an east wind, soon wrapped London 
in a blaze which made the night as light as day for ten 
miles round. At this fearful time, Charles, usually so care- 
less and indifferent, displayed an unexpected energy whilst 
superintending, together with his brother the Duke of York, 
the pulling down of houses, for the purpose of checking the 
flames. At last, wide gaps having been made in the streets 
by blowing up the buildings with gunpowder, and the wind 
abating, the fire was stayed, though not until after it had 
burned for three days, and laid London in ashes from the 
Tower to the Temple and Smithneld. The column known 
as " the Monument" marks the spot near which the fire 
began. Old St. Paul's being among the buildings which 
perished, it was replaced by the present church, the work of 
the great architect Sir Christopher Wren. 

8. The Dutch War. — These calamitous years were further 
marked by a naval war, arising out of commercial rivalry, 
with the Dutch. One battle in the Downs, fought in June 
1666, was contested for four days ; the Dutch were com- 
manded by De Ruyter, the English by Albemarle and Prince 
Rupert. Louis XIV. gave some assistance to the Dutch, but 
after a while he entered into secret negotiations with Charles, 
and did no more for his allies. The English had some suc- 
cesses, but the supplies voted for the war being squandered 
by the Court, the vessels were laid up unrepaired, and the 
sailors left unpaid till they mutinied. In 1667 a Dutch fleet 



TREA TY OF DOVER. 



171 



sailed up the Medway, burned the English vessels at 
Chatham, and blockaded the river Thames — a disgrace 
which sank deep into the a-ation's heart. Peace was made 
soon afterwards. 

9. Treaty of Dover. — The anger of the nation was some- 
what appeased by the dismissal of the Lord Chancellor, 
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clai-endon, hitherto the King's chief 
adviser, and who was disliked, though for different reasons, 
both by courtiers and people. Being impeached by the 
Commons, Clarendon fled the country, and died in exile. 
The King's advisers now took the popular step of forming the 
Triple Alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, in 
order to check Louis XIV. in his career of conquest. But 
Charles had other schemes at heart, and ere long he sold him- 
self to France by the secret Treaty of Dover, May 22, 1670. 
Under this he engaged to declare himself, as soon as might 
be prudent, a Roman Catholic, to join in a war against 
Holland, and otherwise to serve Louis' designs ; while Louis 
engaged to pay him a large subsidy, a yearly pension during 
the war, and to aid him with an army if any insurrection 
should break out in England. The leading ministers of the 
Crown at this time are known as the " Cabal: " — a term used 
in much the same sense as Cabinet, but applied more 
particularly to them in consequence of its comprising the 
initials of their names or titles, Clifford, Lord Arlington, 
the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl 
of Shaftesbury), and the Duke of Lauderdale. Of these, 
only a few were entrusted with the secret of the King's 
promise to declare himself a Roman Catholic. For some 
time before this reign that which we call the cabinet — 
consisting of a small number of persons selected by the 
sovereign, whose existence as a body is still unrecognized by 
law — had begun to draw to itself the functions originally 
belonging to the whole council. The war with Holland was 



172 CHARLES II [chap. 

declared in 1672, the necessary funds being raised by 
'"shutting the Exchequer," that is, by suspending the pay- 
ments due to public creditors. Peace however was made 
in two years. 

10. The Popish Plot. — In 1678, the nation, already not 
without some suspicion of the real plot of Charles and Louis 
against its religion and liberty, was driven wild by the 
alleged discovery of a "Popish Plot " for the assassination of 
the King and the massacre of all Protestants. Titus Oates, 
a man of infamous character, was the chief witness to it ; and 
by him and by others who made a profit of' perjury, the lives 
of many innocent Romanists were sworn away. Under the 
influence of the popular feeling, an Act was passed which, 
by the most stringent test, shut out Papists (the Duke of 
York excepted) from either House of Parliament and from 
the royal presence. 

11. Habeas Corpus Act. — The famous Habeas Corpus 
Act was passed in 1679. The Great Charter had already 
established the immunity of every freeman from arbitrary 
imprisonment ; but in practice various ways were found of 
violating this right. The object of this Act was effectually 
to provide that no man should be long detained in prison 
on a criminal charge without either the legality of his im- 
prisonment being proved in open court, or his being brought 
to trial. In times of public danger, the operation of this 
statute is sometimes suspended by Acts giving the Govern- 
ment power for a limited period to imprison suspected 
persons without bringing them to trial. 

12. Whig and Tory. — In the same year, 1679, the party 
names of Whig and Tory first came into use. Whig was a 
nickname given to the insurgent Presbyterians of Scotland, 
and from them it was transferred to those English politicians 
who were opposed to the Court, and who were now bent on 
shutting out the Duke of York from the throne on account 



xxxv.] WHIG AND TORY. 173 

of his religion. Those who were against this scheme were 
called Tories, the name by which the Romanist outlaws who 
then haunted the bogs of Ireland were known. The King 
had no legitimate children ; but the eldest of his illegitimate 
sons, James Duke of Monmouth, was put forward by some of 
the Whigs as a claimant. Monmouth was the darling of 
the common people, who believed him to be of lawful birth, 
and who were fascinated by his grace and winning manners. 
For the last four years of his reign, Charles, irritated by the 
persistent attempts to exclude his brother from the succes- 
sion, ruled without a Parliament. Many of the Whigs began 
to plan insurrections, while a few of the most desperate 
among them formed the " Rye- House Plot" for the assassi- 
nation of the King and his brother. These projects being 
betrayed, several executions followed ; amongst others, those 
of the upright and patriotic William Lord Russell, and of 
Algernon Sidney, an ardent Republican. Both Russell and 
Sidney are thought to have been wrongfully convicted. 
Monmouth, who had been concerned in the Whig plots, 
went abroad ; and his rival the Duke of York after a while 
resumed his office of Lord High Admiral. While wavering 
as to his future policy, Charles was seized with a fit, and after 
lingering a few days, died on the 6th February, 1685. On his 
death-bed, after the Bishops had vainly pressed him to take 
the Sacrament, his brother secretly brought him a monk, 
from whose hands he received the last rites of the Romish 
Church. The people mourned him with genuine sorrow, for 
with all his faults he had never lost his personal popularity; 
while his brother's accession to power was dreaded. 



74 JAMES II. [chap. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

JAMES II. 

James II. {i)—the Western Rebellion ; beheading of Monmouth ; the 
Bloody Assizes (2) — -niisgovernment of James ; Declaration of 
Indulgence (3)— trial of the Sez>en Bishops (4) — birth of the 
Pretender (5) — invitation to the Prince of Orange (6) — landing 
of the Prince; flight of the Queen and A'iug (7) — return and 
second flight of James ; the Declaration of Right ; the Crown 
accepted by the Prince and Princess of Orange (8) — Literature 
(9) — Science {\o)— Architecture (11) — the Huguenots (12). 

1. James II., 1685-1688. — James Duke of York came to 
the throne under the disadvantage of holding a faith abhorred 
by the majority of his subjects ; but as he was thought a man 
of his word, his assurance that he would defend the Church 
of England and respect the laws was relied on. Yet he 
soon tried the Protestant loyalty by going in royal state to 
mass, and other evidence of a changed condition of affairs 
was not wanting. 

2. The Duke of Monmouth.— Four months after the 
accession of James, the Duke of Monmouth, instigated 
and accompanied by a knot of Whigs who, having been 
implicated in the Plot of 1683, had found shelter in the 
Low Countries, landed in Dorsetshire in arms. At Taunton, 
June 20, 1685, he assumed the title of King. The Western 
peasantry and townsfolk flocked to his standard ; but none of 
the Whig nobles joined him, as he had hoped ; and on the 
6th July, he was defeated on Sedgeinoor by James's troops. 
His peasant infantry made a gallant stand, the Mendip 
miners in particular fighting desperately, though deserted 



xxxvi.] THE WESTERN REBELLION. 175 

by Monmouth, who, seeing that the day was lost, fled away. 
Two days later, worn out with hunger and fatigue, he was 
captured whilst hiding in a ditch. He had been attainted 
by Act of Parliament shortly after his landing, and was be- 
headed on the 15th July, whilst his followers were treated 
with fearful severity. Several were summarily hanged by 
the royal general, the Earl of Feversham, and by Colonel 
Percy Kirke, a hard-hearted and lawless man, who was left 
in command at Bridgewater. The CJiief Justice Jeffreys, 
notorious for his brutal demeanour on the judgment-seat, 
and for the delight he seemed to take in passing sentence, 
came down to hold the " Bloody Assizes" as they were 
named. The first victim was the widow of one of Cromwell's 
lords, Alice Lisle, who had given shelter to two flying rebels. 
She was beheaded at Winchester, intercession for her life 
having in vain been made with the King. The services of 
Jeffreys, who boasted that he had hanged more traitors than 
all his predecessors since the Conquest, and who at the same 
time made a fortune by the sale of pardons, were rewarded 
with the Great Seal. 

3. Government of James. — The King, now at the height 
of power, set his heart upon obtaining a repeal of the 
Habeas Corpus Act, upon keeping up a large army, and, 
above all, upon abolishing or dispensing with the laws 
which shut out Roman Catholics from office. Finding that 
his Parliament, though strongly Tory, would not endure his 
keeping officers of his own religion in the army, he prorogued 
it, and disregarding the advice of the wiser among the 
English Romanists and of the Pope, Innocent XL, who 
wo 1 ild have had him govern according to law, gave himself 
up to the secret councils of a knot of violent men, headed 
by a Jesuit named Pet re. Those of his ministers and judges 
who stood in the way of his schemes were dismissed, favour 
being shown to none except those who would lend them- 



176 JAMES II [chap. 



selves to his purposes ; and from that, even loyal Tories 
shrank. Ireland was entrusted to the government of the 
Romanist Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, who detested 
the Protestant settlers, and filled all offices with men of his 
own creed. Although two Acts of Parliament had abolished 
the High Commission Court of Elizabeth, and forbidden the 
erection of any similar tribunal, anew Ecclesiastical Commis- 
sion, with Jeffreys at its head, was set up for the purpose of 
coercing the clergy ; and a series of attacks were made upon 
the Church. One in particular which excited great indigna- 
tion, was the ejection by the Ecclesiastical Commission, of 
the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for having main- 
tained a President legally elected by themselves against two 
unqualified persons recommended one after the other by 
the King. Finding meanwhile that the Tory gentry and 
the Anglican clergy, hitherto such staunch friends to the 
Crown, were all against him, James began to court the 
Protestant Dissenters ; and in hopes of conciliating them, as 
well as of serving his own religion, he published, April 4th, 
1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws 
against nonconformity, and dispensing with all religious 
tests. In judging of the King's conduct, it should be re- 
membered, that, whether the statutes he thus set aside were 
good or bad, it was the duty of an English King to govern 
according to the constitution, and that in issuing the Decla- 
ration of Indulgence James committed an unconstitutional 
act. Three months later he dissolved the Parliament, which 
had never met since its prorogation in 1685, and set himself, 
by new modelling the borough corporations, which then 
returned a majority of the representatives of the Commons, 
and by every other means in his power, to ensure the 
election of a more subservient one ; but everywhere he 
found a resolute spirit of resistance. 

4. The Seven Bishops. — In 1688 the King issued a second 



xxxvi.] THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 177 

Declaration of Indulgence, which he ordered to be read at 
the time of divine service by the officiating ministers of all 
churches and chapels. A petition against this order was 
thereupon signed and presented by William Sancroft, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and six Bishops of his province. This 
the King received with great anger, and being further in- 
censed at the resistance of the most part of the clergy, he 
resolved to bring the petitioners before the Court of King's 
Bench on a charge of seditious libel. "The Seven Bishops " 
were committed to the Tower, amid marks of public sym- 
pathy and respect from all quarters, even the sentinels 
at the Traitors' Gate asking their blessing. Their trial, at 
which not one of the judges ventured to say that the De- 
claration of Indulgence was legal, ended with a verdict of 
" Not Guilty;" and at this result the national delight 
knew no bounds. James received the news at Hounslow, 
where his army was encamped. As he was setting out for 
London, hearing a great shout, he asked what it meant. 
"Nothing," was the answer, "the soldiers are glad that 
the Bishops are acquitted." " Do you call that nothing?" 
said James, who felt bitterly how complete his defeat 
had been. 

5. Birth of the Pretender. — During this exciting time was 
born, June 10, fames Francis Edward, son of King James 
and his second wife, Mary of Modena — an event which, 
much as it elated the King's partisans, in reality hastened 
their downfall. By his first wife, Amie Hyde, daughter of 
Lord Clarendon, the King had two children, Mary and Anne, 
both Protestants, and married to Protestants, the one to her 
cousin William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau and Stad- 
holder of Holland, the other to George Prince of Denmark. 
The nation had therefore hitherto endured in the belief that 
the next reign would set things right. But the birth of this 
son changed the whole prospect, and in their vexation 

T N 



178 JAMES II [chap. 

the people raised a cry that the infant Prince was no child 
of the King and Queen. 

6. Invitation to William. — The leading malcontents now 
took a decisive step. On the day of the Bishops' acquittal, 
June 30, a secret invitation to the Prince of Orange to come 
over at the head of a sufficient force was despatched, with 
the assurance that the mass of the people would support 
him. This paper, signed in cipher by the seven chiefs of 
the conspiracy — the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, and 
Danby, Lord Lumley, Henry Compton Bishop of London, 
Admiral Russell, and Henry Sidney (the last two cousin and 
brother to the Russell and Sidney who had been beheaded 
in the previous reign) — was carried to Holland by Admiral 
Herbert, disguised as a common sailor. Unwitting of the 
perils thickening around him, James went on in his course. 
To ascertain the temper of the army, the regiment now 
called the 12th of the Line was drawn up in his presence 
and told that all who would not subscribe an engagement 
to assist in carrying into effect his Majesty's intentions con- 
cerning the test must quit the service. To the King's 
amazement, the soldiers, with but few exceptions, at once 
laid down their pikes and muskets. In truth, so much had 
the English army caught the spirit of resistance, that he sent 
over for Irish troops of his own creed, raised and trained by 
Tyrconnel. In vain did Louis of France warn James of his 
danger ; not till the Prince of Orange and his armament 
were ready to sail did the King open his eyes. Then, 
terror-stricken, he attempted to conciliate his subjects by 
abolishing the Ecclesiastical Commission, and making other 
marked concessions ; but it was too late. 

7. Landing of William. — William put forth a Declaration 
stating that he was coming to protect the liberties of England, 
and to secure the calling of a free parliament, which should 
redress grievances and inquire into the birth of the Prince 



xxxvi.] FLIGHT OF JAMES. 179 

of Wales. On the 5th November, 1688, being well served by 
the wind, which prevented the King's fleet from intercepting 
him, he landed at Torbay, where he was received by the 
common people with good will, though it was some days 
before any men of note joined him. Gradually adherents 
of rank came in ; Lord Delamere and the Earls of Devon- 
shire and Danby raised the North in his cause ; officers of 
the Royal army, chief among them Lord Churchill, after- 
wards the great Duke of Marlborough, went over to him ; 
and these defections frightened James into retreating before 
the invader. The King's distress was aggravated by finding 
that even his daughter Anne had, together with her favourite, 
Lady Churchill, fled to the northern insurgents. " God 
help me!" exclaimed he, "my own children have forsaken 
me." Rather than come to terms with his subjects, he 
began to plan the escape of his family and himself. On 
a stormy night the Queen, escorted by the French Count 
of Lauzun, stole out of Whitehall with her infant child, and 
fled to France. At three o'clock in the morning of the nth 
December the King set out to follow her. Whilst crossing 
the Thames in a wherry, he flung the Great Seal into the 
stream, whence it was accidentally fished up after many 
months. 

8. The Interregnum. — As there was now no govern- 
ment, such peers as were at hand took upon themselves 
a temporary authority, and sent to the Prince of Orange, 
requesting his presence in London. The City was almost 
in a state of anarchy, but the mob showed no disposi- 
tion towards bloodshed, except in one case. The Lord 
Chancellor Jeffreys, disguised as a collier sailor, being dis- 
covered in an alehouse at Wapping, was in peril of his life. 
At his own entreaty, the Lords sent him to the Tower, 
where he died in 1689, his end being hastened by his intem- 
perance. Meanwhile the King had not succeeded in leaving 

N 2 



i8o JAMES II [chap. 

the island, and having been stopped near Sheerness by some 
rough fishermen, who took him for a fugitive Jesuit, he re- 
turned to London. The Tories, who had considered them- 
selves freed from their allegiance by his desertion, felt that 
the case was altered when he was still in his kingdom. To 
frighten him to a second escape was now the policy of William, 
who, sending his troops to take possession of Whitehall, signi- 
fied his desire that James should withdraw. The fallen King 
thereupon retired, escorted by Dutch soldiers, to Rochester, 
where, being guarded with intentional negligence, he soon 
carried out his enemies' wishes by taking flight, December 22, 
to France, and there was received with generous kindness 
by Louis XIV. At the invitation of an assembly of peers 
and commoners, the Prince of Orange took on himself the 
government, and summoned a Convention of the Estates 
of the Realm, which met January 22, 1689. After long dis- 
cussion, this Convention resolved, "that it hath been found 
by experience to be inconsistent with the safety and welfare 
of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a Popish 
Prince," and that King James II., "having endeavoured to 
subvert the constitution," " having violated the fundamental 
laws," and "having withdrawn himself out of the king- 
dom," had abdicated the government, and that the throne had 
thereby become vacant. That there might never again be 
any room for dispute between the sovereign and the nation, 
a Declaration of Right was drawn up, which asserted the 
ancient rights and liberties of England ; and in entire 
confidence that these would be preserved by William, the 
Lords and Commons offered the crown to him and his wife. 
The offer, formally made on the 13th February, was accepted; 
and thus was completed the English Revolution. The sove- 
reignty of Ireland went with that of England ; and a few 
months later the Crown of Scotland was bestowed upon 
William and Mary by the Estates of that country. 






xxxvi.] LITERATURE. 181 

9. Literature. — Among the divines of the Stuart period, 
Jeremy Taylor, who died in 1667, is celebrated for his devo- 
tional works and for his sermons, the finest that had yet been 
heard in the English Church. Clarendon, noted as the 
minister of Charles II., is also famous as the historian of the 
stirring times through which he lived. His History of the 
Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, despite its inaccu- 
racies and Royalist prejudices, is one of the great works 
of English literature. Izaak Walton, " the Father of 
Angling," as he is called, published, in 1653, The Complete 
Angler, which is more than a mere treatise upon fishing. 
Its quaint grace and feeling for rural scenes render it in- 
teresting even to those who care nothing about its subject. 
John Bunyan, the greatest of allegorists, born in 1628 near 
Bedford, was brought up to the trade of a tinker, and served 
for a short time as a soldier in the parliamentary army. 
Joining himself to the Baptists, he became noted as a 
preacher ; and it was after the Restoration, while lying in 
Bedford gaol for the offence of upholding "unlawful meet- 
ings and conventicles," that he composed the first part of 
the Pilgrim's Progress. This religious allegory became the 
delight of pious people among the poor, although it was 
more than a century before the genius of its author was 
acknowledged by literary critics. Of the poets of the time of 
Charles I., Abraham Cowley was in his own day accounted 
unrivalled, though he is now but little read. Another noted 
poet was Edmund Waller, who employed his poetical talents 
to praise Cromwell during the Protectorate, and Charles II. 
at the Restoration. Samuel Butler was the author of Hudi- 
bras, a burlesque poem against the Puritans, the hero, from 
whom it has its name, being a half-crazy Presbyterian justice, 
who undertakes the reform of abuses The Commonwealth 
party though not i;i general favoured by the wits and verse- 
writers, could claim for its own one of the greatest poets of 



i82 JAMES II. [chap. 

England. John Milton, who wrote in defence of the execu- 
tion of Charles I., and held the post of Latin Secretary to the 
Council of State, published his chief work, Paradise Lost, in 
1667. Many however of his beautiful minor poems were 
written before the Civil Wars began. He died in 1674, 
having been blind for more than twenty years. The 
reaction against the Puritan over-strictness showed itself 
strongly in the polite literature of the time of Charles II., 
above all in the comic dramas, which were a disgrace to the 
age — not that they lacked wit or humour or dramatic skill, 
but because they were morally bad to a degree which testi- 
fies to the debased state of the society which delighted in 
them. Writing for the stage was then the most profitable 
employment for an author, and John Dryden, chief of the 
poets of the Restoration school, spent his best years upon 
dramatic composition, for which his talents were unsuited. 
As a lyric poet, and especially as a satirist, he stands high, 
one of his most famous works being the satiric poem of 
Absalom and Achitophel, under which names the Duke of 
Monmouth and his political friend the Earl of Shaftesbury 
are aimed at. 

10. Science. — Among the famous men who lived under the 
first Stuart Kings was the physician William Harvey, who 
made the discovery of the circulation of the blood. The 
Restoration period, however politically discreditable, was 
a time of great advances in science. The Royal Society, 
which numbered among its first members men illustrious in 
chemistry, in astronomy, in mathematics, in botany, and in 
zoology, was established shortly after the Restoration. John 
Flamsteed, from whose time dates the beginning of modern 
astronomy, was the first Astronomer- Royal, the Observatory 
at Greenwich being founded by Charles II. for the benefit of 
navigation. The greatest name in science is that of Isaac 
Newton, famed for his wonderful discoveries in mathematics 



XXXVI.] ARCHITECTURE. iSj 

and natural philosophy. He was born in Lincolnshire in 
1642, and died in 1727, in his eighty-fifth year. His chief 
work, the Principle/,, was published in 1687. 

11. Architecture. — Under the Tudors Gothic architecture 
had begun to go down. Italian details became more and 
more mixed with it, and the style called Elizabethan was the 
result. The pure Italian style, in imitation of ancient Roman 
architecture, was brought into England early in the seven- 
teenth century by Inigo Jones, and superseded Gothic, which 
was now little regarded or understood. Sir Christopher 
Wren, admirable in the style of his age, failed when he 
imitated Gothic, as the towers he added to Westminster 
Abbey still serve to show. His finest work is the cathedral 
church of St. Paul, which was completed in 17 10. He died 
in 1723, at the age of ninety, and was buried in the crypt of 
his own great church, with this epitaph : — "Si monumentum 
requiris, circumspice :" ("If thou seekest his monument, 
look around "). 

12. The Huguenots.— In 1685 Louis XIV. revoked the 
Edict of Nantes, under which the Huguenots or French 
Protestants had hitherto enjoyed a certain amount of reli- 
gious liberty. In consequence of this revocation and the 
ensuing persecution, thousands of brave, intelligent, and in- 
dustrious men of that faith fled from his dominions, carrying 
their valour or their skill to other lands. Many of these 
refugees settled in Spitalfields, London, and there introduced 
the manufacture of silk. Others, taking military service with 
the Prince of Orange, turned their swords against their 
former King;. 



:84 WILLIAM AND MARY. [chap 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

WILLIAM AND MARY. WILLIAM III. 

William and Mary ; the Non-Jitrors (i) — war in Ireland; siege 
of Londonderry ; battle of the Boyne (2) — battle of La Hofrne ; 
Peace of ' Ryswick ; the National Debt ; the re-coinage ; Assassina- 
tion Plot; the Bank of England (3) — death of Queen Mary (4) — 
the Peace ; the Spanish Succession ; death of William (.5) — Legis- 
lation ; Bill of Rights ; Act of Settlement and other Statutes (6). 

1. William and Mary, 1688-g — 1694. William III., 1702. 
— From youth upwards one idea had possessed the soul of 
William of Orange — that of breaking the power of Louis 
XIV. — and he valued his English kingdom chiefly as a means 
towards this end. Though weak in body, the energy of his 
spirit was unconquerable, and no danger ever daunted him. 
His manners however were cold, his temper sour, and he 
roused the English jealousy by placing men of his own nation 
about him. His wife was an amiable woman ; but the 
Jacobites^ or extreme Tories, who adhered to James, never 
ceased to taunt her for having ousted her father. Many 
Tories thought the deposition of the King wrong, and from 
this scruple, about four hundred clergymen and members of 
the Universities, with Sancroft and six other bishops at their 
head, resigned their preferments rather than swear allegiance 
to the new sovereigns. These men, who could boast that 
live out of the famous " Seven Bishops" were among them, 
were known as the Non-jurors. 

2. Ireland. — As yet William was King of Ireland in little 
more than name. That country was divided between the 
Romanist "Irishry," or original Irish, together with the de- 



xxxvn.] WAR IN IRELAND. 185 

scendants of the Norman-English settlers, probably about a 
million in number, and the Protestant " Englishry," consist- 
ing of about 200,000 English and Scotch colonists, who owned 
more than four-fifths of the property of Ireland, and whose 
inferiority in number was compensated by their superiority 
in wealth and civilization. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
Tyrconnel, invited James over from his refuge in France, and 
raising his standard with the motto, " Now or never ! Now 
and for ever ! " called his countrymen to arms. The whole 
Irish race rose in answer, — not that they cared for James, 
but because they desired independence, — and Tyrconnel 
soon mustered a mighty though half-savage host. Louis of 
France furnished arms, money, and officers, and James, thus 
equipped, landed in Ireland in March 1689, and held in 
Dublin a Parliament of his adherents, in which he gave his 
consent to the great Act of Attainder, whereby between two 
and three thousand Protestants were attainted of treason. 
The Englishry meanwhile stood gallantly at bay in Ennis- 
killen and Loidonderry. The latter city, under the govern- 
ment of Major Henry Baker and an aged clergyman, George 
Walker, was besieged by James's forces ; and though reduced 
to extremity of hunger, its defenders hardly able to keep their 
feet for very weakness, it held out for a hundred and five 
days, until relieved from England. At the same time the 
Enniskilleners routed the Jacobites at Newton Butler. In 
the summer of the next year, William himself went over to 
Ireland. England, dreading the power of Louis XIV., and 
provoked by his interference, had joined the general league 
of the chief powers of Europe against France. William's 
departure therefore was straightway made the occasion of an 
attempt upon England by the French in concert with the 
Jacobites, and Herbert, now Earl of Torrington, was igno- 
miniously worsted in an engagement with the French fleet 
off Beachy Head. But comfort came in the news of a 



1 86 WILLIAM AND MARY. [chap. 

decisive victory won by William on the ist of July, 1690, 
over the French and Irish at the Boyne. The conduct of 
the rival Kings was strikingly diverse. William, his sword 
in the left hand — for his other arm was crippled by a wound 
— led his troops through the Boyne river, and was fore- 
most in the fight ; James looked on from a safe distance, 
until, seeing the day going against him, he galloped off, and 
reviling his Irish army, made his way to the coast, whence 
he sailed for France. Meanwhile the French admiral, Tonr- 
ville, finding that, contrary to the prediction of the exiled 
Jacobites, the country did not rise to join him, departed, after 
having sacked the defenceless town of Teignmouth. The 
reduction of Ireland to England was effected the next year 
by the Dutch General Giukell, afterwards created Earl of 
Athlone, who gained, July 12th, 169 1, the battle of AgJirim 
over the Irish and their French general, St. Ruth, who fell 
in the fight. Limerick, their last stronghold, surrendered to 
Ginkell in October, its gallant defender, Patrick Sarsfirfd, 
and as many as would follow him, being permitted to pass 
to the French service. The domination of the colonists was 
now assured, and rigorous laws were made to hold down the 
Romanists, the bravest and best of whom, denied all chance 
of rising in their own land, entered the service of foreign 
states. 

3. The War with France.— In 1692, during William's 
absence on the Continent, another French invasion was pro- 
jected ; but the allied English and Dutch fleets, commanded 
in chief by Admiral Russell, attacked and defeated Admiral 
Tourville in the Channel, chased the enemy to the Bay of La 
Hague, and there burned his ships in the sight of James. 
There were great rejoicings at this victory, not merely 
because the people were proud of the exploit, but because 
it had saved the island from invasion. On land the struggle 
against France was chiefly carried on in the Netherlands, 



xxxvii.] THE RE-COINAGE. 187 

where William led his army in person. At last Louis, worn 
out by the long war, consented to acknowledge the Prince of 
Orange as King of Great Britain ; and this led to the general 
peace which was made at Ryswick in 1697. Although the 
English had not to fight on their own soil, this war put a great 
strain upon their resources. In 1692, the year of La Hogue, 
the land-tax was first imposed, and, this being found insuffi- 
cient, the Government next raised money by a loan. Thus 
began the National Debt. Among the difficulties of the 
country must be reckoned the bad state of its silver coin, 
arising from the fraudulent practice of "clipping." The 
coinage of additional money, with its edges so milled that it 
could not be clipped without detection, seemed only to 
aggravate the evil ; for every man tried to pay in light, and 
to be paid in heavy coin. At last, in 1696, an Act was 
passed for a new coinage, and while this was going on, 
much inconvenience and even hardship was caused by the 
scarcity of silver, although the Mint, with the great philo- 
sopher Isaac Newton at its head, coined faster than it had 
ever done before. Fortunately at this moment, when the 
patience of the nation was thus severely tried, the King 
happened to be in special favour, owing to the general 
indignation at a recently detected Jacobite conspiracy for 
his assassination on his way back from hunting. In the 
excitement caused by this discovery, more than four hundred 
of the Commons solemnly pledged themselves to stand by 
William in life or to avenge him in death, and their example 
was generally followed throughout the nation. The manage- 
ment of the re-coinage reflected great credit upon the then 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Montague, a young 
Whig, noted for bringing about the foundation, in 1694, of 
the Bank of England, on a plan devised by a Scotsman 
named Paterson. 

4. Death of Mary.— In 1694, on the 28th December, 



1 88 WILLIAM HI. [chai>. 

Queen Mary had died of small-pox. Not long afterwards 
by her husband's orders, the unfinished palace of Greenwich 
was turned into an hospital for seamen of the Royal Navy ; 
and thus, in honour of her memory, was carried out the 
wish she had formed at the time when difficulty was found 
in providing for the many wounded at La Hogue. The 
additions to the palace were made by Sir Christopher Wren. 
5. The Spanish Succession. — After the Peace of Ryswick 
came a time of sore mortification to William. Not only did 
the Commons insist on having the greater part of the army 
disbanded, but they further forced him to send away all his 
foreign troops, even his favourite Dutch Guards. Fresh 
iil-feeling arose between the King and the Commons on the 
subject of the disposal of forfeited land in Ireland, much of 
which he had bestowed on his personal friends. The Com- 
mons constrained him to give his assent to an Act for 
annulling all his Irish grants, and applying the forfeitures to 
the public service. In 1700 Charles King of Spain died 
childless, bequeathing his vast dominions to Philip of A)ijou, 
a grandson of Louis XIV. To prevent such an increase of 
the French power at once became William's aim ; and his 
cause was served by the imprudence of the French King. In 
September 1701 James II. died, and Louis, in the face of 
the Treaty of Ryswick, recognized his son, whom the Whigs 
called " the Pretender" as King of England, Scotland, and 
Ireland. This roused general indignation. A Parliament 
met, which requested William to make no peace with France 
until reparation for this affront was made. The King's health 
was breaking down, but, nerved by thoughts of the work 
before him, he still bore up. In February 1702 whe-n he 
was riding at Hampton Court, his horse fell over a mole-hill, 
and the King was thrown, and broke his collar-bone ; sinking 
under the shock, he died on the 8th March, in his fifty- 
second year. As Queen Mary had no children, the Crown 



xxxvil.] LEGISLATION. 189 

according to the settlement made by the Declaration and 
Bill of Rights, passed to the Princess Anne of Denmark. 

6. Legislation. — Chief among the statutes of this reign 
stands the Bill of Rights, which, after reciting the Declaration 
of the Convention, declared it, with some additions, to be law. 
The levying of money for the use of the crown, without grant of 
Parliament, the keeping of a standing army in time of peace, 
unless by consent of Parliament, were herein declared illegal. 
The right of subjects to petition, of electors freely to choose 
their representatives, the right of the legislature to freedom 
of debate, the necessity of frequent parliaments, were affirmed. 
The methods by which in late years the administration of 
justice had been tampered with, the imposition of excessive 
fines, the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments, were 
condemned. The power, which James II. had illegally exer- 
cised, of dispensing with or setting aside laws by regal autho- 
rity was abolished ; and a Papist, or even the husband or wife 
of a Papist, was made incapable of wearing the English crown. 
The Toleration Act, though not affording complete re- 
ligious liberty, substantially gave all that was wanted by the 
Protestant Dissenters ; but Romanists and deniers of the 
Trinity were excluded from its benefits. The oaths of 
allegiance and supremacy were replaced by new and simpler 
forms, that of supremacy consisting mainly of a renunciation 
of the Pope's authority. The first Mutiny Act gave the 
sovereign a temporary power of punishing mutiny or de- 
sertion by the special jurisdiction known as martial law. 
Similar Acts, limited to a year's duration, are still the only 
means by which the crown can legally keep an army. These 
statutes were all passed in the first year of William and 
Mary. In 1695 the press became free ; hitherto nothing 
could be published without the licence of an officer appointed 
by the Government, but now this censorship was given up, 
and newspapers at once made their appearance. In the 



ic,o WILLIAM III [chap. 

next year was passed the Act for regulating of trials in cases 
of treason. Hitherto the law had placed those accused of 
high treason at great disadvantage, and before the Revolu- 
tion such trials had often been little better than judicial 
murders ; by this Act, among other provisions for securing 
the accused person a fair trial, it was enacted that he should 
have a copy of the indictment delivered to him five da) s 
before trial, and should be allowed to make his defence by 
counsel. The Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, settled the 
crown, in default of heirs of Anne or of William, upon the 
granddaughter of James I. and daughter of Elizabeth Queen 
of Bohemia, the Princess Sophia, Electress 'of Hanover, and 
her heirs, being Protestants. There were other families 
nearer in the order of inheritance than the House of 
Hanover, but they were passed over as being Roman Catholic. 
Some articles were inserted in the Act of Settlement, to 
take effect only after the succession under the new limita- 
tion to the House of Hanover. Of these, two of the most 
important were, that whosoever should hereafter come to 
the possession of the crown, should join in communion with 
the established Church of England ; and that the judges 
should hold their offices during good behaviour, not as 
formerly, at the royal pleasure. In the following year a 
statute was passed which imposed on members of parlia- 
ment, civil and military officers, ecclesiastics, lawyers and 
others, an oath of abjuration, by which they abjuied the 
title of the pretended Prince of Wales, and bound them- 
selves to maintain the settlement made of the crown. 



xxxv in.] ANNE. 191 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

ANNE. 

Prince George of Denmark ; Anne; the Duke and Duchess of Marl- 
borough ( 1 ) — War of the Spanish Succession; battles of Blenheim and 
A' am Hies; taking of Gibraltar; the Earl of Peterborough ; battle 
of Almanza ; Sir Cloudesley Shovel; battles of Oudenarde and 
Malplaquet (2) — the Union of England and Scotland (3) — rise 
oj the Tories; Peace of Utrecht (4) — death of Anne (5) — Queen 
Anne's Bounty (6). 

I. Anne, 1702-1714. — The Queen's husband, Prince George 
of Denmark, of whom Charles II. said that he himself had 
tried him, drunk and sober, but there was nothing in him, 
was too insignificant in character to have any influence. 
From girlhood, Anne had been ruled by the handsome and 
domineering Sarah, wife of Churchill ; and so close was 
their friendship that they corresponded with each other 
under the names of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, the 
latter being adopted by the favourite to denote her frankness. 
John Churchill, Earl, and afterwards Duke, of Marlborough, 
who within a week of Anne's accession was made Captain 
General of the Forces, was the ablest man of his time as a 
general and statesman, though he owed his favour with 
Anne chiefly to his wife's influence. Brave though gentle, 
and of imperturbable serenity of temper, distinguished by 
the care and humanity which he showed towards prisoners of 
war, his character was yet stained by avarice and treachery. 
After having at the Revolution deserted James for William, 
he had since been disgraced for intriguing with James ; 
nevertheless William had lately given him high command, 



192 ANNE. [chap. 

foreseeing, it is said, that he would be the moving spirit in 
the next reign. Though his wife sided with the Whigs, who 
supported the late King's war policy, Marlborough himself 
passed at the time for a Tory, and thereby gained increased 
influence with the Queen, who loved the Church and the 
Tories, whom she preferred to call " the Church party" A 
dislike of armed interference in continental politics con- 
tinued to be a mark of a Tory until after the French 
Revolution, when the two parties changed places in that 
respect. 

2. War of the Spanish Succession. — King William's last 
work, an alliance of England, Holland, the Emperor, and 
other European powers against Louis XIV. and his grand- 
son, survived him. The war with France was shortly declared, 
the allies supporting the claim of the Archduke Charles of 
Austria to the Spanish crown. Marlborough, in command of 
the allied English and Dutch forces, now entered upon that 
course of splendid achievements which gained him the high 
place he holds among generals. On the 2nd August, 1704, he 
won, in concert with the Imperial commander Prince Eugene 
of Savoy, the great battle of Blenheim over the French and 
Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, who was there taken pri- 
soner. Marlborough, in reward of his services, received the 
royal manor of Woodstock, upon which was afterwards built 
the Palace of Blenheim. Another great battle, that of /fami- 
lies, was won by him two years later on the 12th May ; but 
meanwhile the allied arms had been less successful in the 
Peninsula, though the rock and fortress of Gibraltar, valuable 
as the key of the Mediterranean, were taken by Admiral Sir 
George Rooke and the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, and have 
ever since remained in the keeping of England. Charles 
Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, a clever but eccentric man, 
who flew about the world, seeing, it was said, more kings 
and more postilons than any other man in Europe, for a 






xxxviii.] UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 193 

while carried all before him in Spain ; but as his advice 
was disregarded, he left in disgust. After this, affairs were 
mismanaged, and in 1707 the allied English, Dutch, and 
Portuguese were, in the battle of Ahnanza, utterly routed by 
the Duke of Berwick, an illegitimate son of James II. Other 
disasters followed. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who from a cabin- 
boy had risen to be one of the best of the English admirals, 
was lost with four of his vessels on the rocks of Scilly. It 
is said that he was thrown on shore, and reached, worn out 
with fatigue, the hut of a woman, by whom he was murdered 
for the sake of a ring and other valuable property he had 
upon him. The next year was more fortunate, Marlborough 
and Eugene gaining the battle of Oudenarde, and the island 
of Minorca being taken. Other successes brought Louis to 
seek terms of peace ; but the allies required more than he 
would yield, and, though his navy was swept from the seas 
and his people were starving, his kingdom yet nerved itself 
for another campaign, in which Marlborough gained the 
bloody and fruitless victory of Malplaguet. 

3. The Union of England and Scotland. — The U~7iion 
of England and Scotland into one Kingdom by the name of 
Great Britain was brought about in 1707. Thenceforth there 
was only one Parliament for the two countries, and English, 
Welsh, and Scots were all included in the common name of 
British. A national flag — the same as that which had been 
ordered by James I., but which had fallen into disuse — was 
appointed for the United Kingdom. 

4. Ascendency of the Tories. — In 1709 it chanced that 
one Dr. SacJieverel preached two sermons, one before the 
Judges of Assize at Derby, the other before the Lord Mayor 
at St. Paul's, in which the Doctor spoke against the toleration 
granted to Dissenters, and put forward the then favourite 
Tory doctrine of non-resistance ; that is, that nothing could 
justify a subject in taking up arms against his rightful 

T O 



194 ANNE. [chap. 

sovereign. The Whigs, who felt this as a slur upon ihe 
Revolution, impeached him ; he was condemned by the 
Lords, but his sentence was so light that the result was 
looked upon as a victory by his Toiy friends ; and the com- 
mon people, who were all for "High Church and Sacheverel," 
made great rejoicings. Soon after this, the Tories came into 
power, having on their side the Queen's reigning favourite, 
Abigail Afasham, a bed-chamber woman who had gradually 
supplanted the haughty Duchess of Marlborough. The new 
Tory ministers, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry 
St. John, afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke. set themselves to 
put an end to the war, and this they brought about in an 
underhand manner, keeping their allies in the dark. Marl- 
borough was charged with peculation, and dismissed from 
employment, and the Tory Duke of Ormond was sent out 
in his place, with secret orders not to undertake any con- 
siderable enterprise. The other allies, deserted by the 
British government, finally agreed to the Peace of Utrecht \n 
17 13. By this Great Britain received the French colony of 
Acadie or Nova Scotia, and the island of St. Christopher, 
and kept Gibraltar and Minorca ; while the French King ac- 
knowledged Anne as Queen of Great Britain, guaranteed the 
succession of the House of Hanover, and engaged to make 
the Pretender withdraw from the French dominions. Yet 
the Jacobites placed great hopes in Bolingbroke, v/ho appears 
to have intended to bring about the succession of the Cheva- 
lier de St. George (as the Pretender was more courteously 
called), whom he and other Jacobites urged, but in vain, to 
turn Protestant. This question of succession was brought 
more strongly before men's eyes by the death of the aged 
Princess Sophia, whereby her son George Louis, Electa? 
of Brunswick- Luneburg, became heir to the throne, all 
Anne's children having died in their youth. 

5. Death of Anne. — The Queen's death was hastened by 



xxxix.] GEORGE I. 195 

her agitation at a violent dispute in her presence between 
Oxford and Bolingbroke, who were now open rivals. Boling- 
broke so far prevailed that Oxford was dismissed from his 
office of Lord High Treasurer. Within a week the Queen 
was struck by apoplexy, and died August 1, 1714. Before 
her death she defeated the hopes of Bolingbroke and the 
Jacobite party by delivering the Treasurer's staff to the Duke 
of Shrewsbury — the same Shrewsbury who had signed the 
invitation to the Prince of Orange — bidding him " use it for 
the good of her people." 

6. Queen Anne's Bounty is a still existing benefit which 
was conferred by Anne upon the Church by restoring to it 
for the increase of the poorer livings the first-fruits and 
tenths of benefices which were paid formerly to the Pope, 
and afterwards to Henry VIII. and his successors. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

GEORGE I. 

George I.; impeachment of Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond ; the 
Riot Act (1) — the Pretender (2) — the South Sea Scheme (3) — 
death of George (4) — the Septennial Act (5). 

I. House of Hanover or of Brunswick-Liineburg. 
George I., 1714-1727. — George, Elector of Brunsunck-Litne- 
burg (otherwise of Hanover), was proclaimed King of Great 
Britain and Ireland without a single Jacobite stirring a step. 
But he made no great haste to take possession of his king- 
dom ; and, whether through indifference, fear, or natural 
O 2 



196 GEORGE L [chap. 

slowness, let six weeks pass before he, in company with his 
eldest son, landed at Greenwich. The new ruler, though 
well received, was not a man to excite much loyalty. He 
was fifty- four years of age, small of stature, and awkward ; 
he could speak no English, so that he had to be taught 
by rote a few words wherein to address his first Par- 
liament ; he had left his wife shut up in a German castle, 
and his private life was not such as to command any 
respect. As a King, he was honest and well-intentioned ; 
but his excessive attachment to his native dominions proved 
a source of embarrassment to his ministers and of discontent 
to the nation ; and, except as a symbol of Protestantism 
and constitutional government, he had never any attraction 
for his English subjects. His first ministry was composed 
almost wholly of Whigs ; and the new Parliament proceeded 
to impeach Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond on charges 
of misconduct in the transactions relating to the Peace of 
Utrecht, and of intriguing with the Pretender. Bolingbroke 
had taken alarm early, and fled to France, whither Ormond 
soon followed him. Acts of attainder were passed against 
both the fugitives ; Oxford, standing his ground, was sent to 
the Tower, but, within two years, was released on acquittal. 
These proceedings increased the discontent of the Tories, 
which had already broken out in riots. The disturbances 
became so serious as to lead to the passing of the Riot Act, 
under which an unlawful assembly which does not disperse 
on command of a magistrate becomes guilty of felony. 

2. The Pretender. — On the 6th September, 171 5, the 
standard of the Pretender was raised in the Highlands by the 
Earl of Mar, at the head of a Scottish force, with a handful 
of North-country Englishmen. He had counted upon a Jaco- 
bite rising in the West of England ; but the government, by 
arresting the influential members of the party, crushed this 
intended insurrection. The North-country rebels, being 



xxxix.] THE PRETENDER. 197 

defeated at Preston, surrendered on the 13th November, and 
the same day the Scots were engaged by John Campbell 
Duke of Ar gyle at Sheriff-Muir in a drawn battle, which was 
practically a victory for the King. Later in the year the 
Pretender himself appeared in Scotland ; but he found his 
affairs gc.ng so badly that he soon slipped away with Mar 
to France, and the insurgents broke up. Seven noblemen 
were se-itenced to death for this attempt ; of these three were 
respite i, and two escaped, one of them, the Earl of Nitliis- 
dale, oy the help of his wife, getting out of the Tower in 
worn an's clothes the day before that which was fixed for his 
execution. The Earl of Derwentwater and Viscount Ken- 
mi re, together with about thirty other persons, all taken in 
arms, suffered death. This was not the only attempt in favour 
of the Pretender made during this reign. Charles XII., King 
oj Sweden, being eager to revenge himself upon George for 
having bought from Denmark and added to Hanover the 
d'jchies of Bremen and Verden which had been taken from 
Charles, planned, in connexion with the Jacobites, an invasion 
of Scotland ; but the conspiracy was discovered and crushed 
early in 171 7. A fresh chance was afforded the Pretender 
by a war the next year between Great Britain and Spain. A 
Spanish force, under Jacobite refugees, was sent from Cadiz 
in 1 7 19; but the greater part of the fleet which carried them 
was shattered by a storm, and constrained to return. 

3. The South Sea Scheme. — In 1720 England went half 
mad over the famous South Sea scheme. The South Sea 
Company, which had a monopoly of trade to the Spanish 
coasts of South America, engaged with the government to 
buy up certain annuities which had been granted in the reign 
of William and Maiy, for the purpose of reducing the Public 
Debt. The annuitants were invited to exchange their stock 
for that of the South Sea Company. A rage for speculation 
set in upon the country ; the 100/. shares of the Company 



198 GEORGE I. [chap. 



went up to 1,000/. ; then they fell, a panic followed, and 
thousands of families were ruined. The people became 
furious against the directors ; and, though the estates of the 
latter were confiscated by Parliament for the benefit of the 
sufferers, the punishment was exclaimed agaili2* as too mild. 
Robert Walpole, whose financial skill was well known, 
became first minister of the Crown ; and by his management 
the government was helped through its difficulties- The 
state of confusion into which the country was throvvn, as 
well as the birth of a son to the Pretender, stirred up the 
Jacobites again to plot an invasion. Francis AtterbWy, 
Bishop of Rochester, being found to be concerned in this 
conspiracy, was deprived of his bishoprick and banished. 

4. Death of George. — In the summer of 1727, the Kir'g 
left England for Hanover, and, being struck by apoplexy en 
his road to Osnabriick, died in his carriage in the nig it 
of the 10th June. By his wife, Sophia Dorothea, Princes? 
of Zell, he left one son, George Augustus, Prince cf 
Wales, with whom he was for some time notoriously 01? 
bad terms. 

5. The Septennial Act. — By a statute, known as the 
Triennial Act, passed under William and Mary, no Parlia- 
ment could last longer than three years. But after the 
rebellion of 17 15, when the government was loth to face a 
general election, this statute was repealed by another which 
lengthened to seven years the term for which a parliament 
might last. This — the Septennial Act, as it is called — is 
still law. 



XL.] GEORGE II. 199 



CHAPTER XL. 

GEORGE II. 

George II.; administration of Walpole (i)—war with Spain; 
Anson s voyage (2) — War of the Austrian Succession; battles 
of Dettingen and Fontenoy (3) — the Young Pretender ; battle 
of Culloden ; end of the Stuart line (4) — war with France ; 
shooting of Byng ; Pitt's administration ; death of Wolfe; ac- 
quisition of Canada (5) — India ; Clive ; " the Black Hole''' (6) — 
death of George (7) — reform of the kalendar (8) — the Eddystone 
Lighthouse (9) — rise of Methodism (10) — lite?-ature (il). 

I. George II., 1727-1760. — George II., like his father the 
late King, was German by birth, German in feeling and 
politics, attached to his native dominions, and for their 
sake ever interfering in Continental affairs. Like his father 
also, he was at variance with his son, Frederick Prince of 
Wales, a weak young man, who was popular chiefly because 
the King was unpopular. George II. could however speak 
English fluently, and, so far, he had the advantage over his 
predecessor. In character he was methodical, parsimonious, 
stubborn, and passionate, of an intrepid spirit, and fond of 
war. His private life was not creditable, yet he was, after 
his fashion, sincerely attached to his clever wife, Caroline of 
Brandenburg-Anspach) who had the art of ruling without 
seeming to rule. For the first ten years of his reign he was 
managed by the Queen, and through her by Sir Robert 
Walpole, whose constant policy was to keep England at 
peace and himself in power. One of Walpole's financial 
plans however was very near displacing him. This was a 
scheme for extending the Excise duties, which were already 
most unpopular. The Tories and the discontented Whigs 
or " Patriots" combining against it, contrived to lash the 
country into such a fury that it was well-nigh ready to rebel. 



GEORGE II. [chap. 



Walpole therefore, though confident of the advantages of 
the measure, gave it up, saying that he would never be the 
minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood. 

2. War with Spain. — A similar clamour, excited by the 
means which the Spaniards took to check contraband trade 
with their South American colonies, and by their alleged 
cruelties towards English seamen, at last drove Walpole into 
a war with Spain in 1739. Except in the taking of Porto 
Bello by Admiral Vernon with six ships, the war was not very 
successful. Commodore Anson, who was sent out to harass 
the coasts of Chili and Peru, made a voyage round the world, 
in which he suffered terrible hardships, losing numbers of 
his crews from scurvy, and only bringing home his own ship, 
the Centurion. This expedition, though not politically pro- 
fitable, raised the fame of British seamanship. Meanwhile 
Walpole, whose reluctance to enter upon this war had made 
him thoroughly unpopular, resigned, and thereupon was 
called to the House of Peers as Earl of 0?ford. His 
steady friend Queen Caroline had died in 1737. 

3. War of the Austrian Succession.— In 1741 began the 
War of the Austrian Succession, in which Great Britain 
became entangled, and took the side opposed to France. The 
nation disliked being thus mixed up with Continental 
quarrels ; and when Hanoverian and Hessian troops were 
taken into British pay, the indignation was great. " It is 
now too apparent," said William Pitt, the boldest speaker 
among the " Patriots," " that this powerful, this great, this 
mighty nation, is considered only as a province to a des- 
picable Electorate." In the summer of 1743 the King 
joined his army in Germany, and defeated the French in 
the battle of Dettingen, where George fought on foot at 
the head of his right line. The battle of Fontenoy, 1745, 
in which the allies were defeated by the French under 
Marshal Saxe. is further memorable for the heroic courage 



XL.] THE YOUNG PRETENDER. 201 

shown by the British and Hanoverian infantry. Peace was 
made at Aix-la-Chapelle {Aachen), in 1748. 

4. The Young Pretender. — Early in this war the French 
government had secretly invited to France Charles Edward 
Stuart (who was called the Young Pretender and the Young 
Chevalier, to distinguish him from his father James the Old 
Pretender), and had planned an invasion of England in his 
favour. With this intent, an expedition put to sea in 1 744, but 
it was scattered by a storm. The next year, 1745, Charles, with 
seven followers, landed in the Highlands, and there mustered 
a small force of adherents. After routing the royal general, 
Sir John Cope, at Preston-Pans, and receiving some small 
supplies of money and arms from France, Charles entered 
Cumberland, and with four or five thousand men, pushing on 
for London, advanced, to the great dismay of the capital, as 
far as Derby. But here the hearts of the rebel officers failed 
them ; marvellous as their success had been, there was no 
such rising in their favour as Charles had reckoned upon. 
Jacobitism existed in England merely as a traditional faith, 
or as a method of expressing discontent, not as a belief for 
which men would peril their lives and properties. Charles, 
unwillingly yielding to the wishes of his officers, retreated to 
Scotland, and, after gaining a victory at Falkirk, was over- 
thrown by the King's favourite son, William Duke of Cum- 
berland, at Culloden on the 16th April, 1746. The English 
victory was tarnished by the cold-blooded slaughter of 
wounded enemies on the battle-field, and by the atrocities 
afterwards committed in the disaffected country — cruelties 
which gained for Cumberland the nickname of " The 
Butcher? For their share in this insurrection, known in 
popular Scottish phrase, from the year in which it took 
place, as ''''the Forty-five" the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lords 
Balmerino and Lovat, Charles Radclife (brother to the 
late Earl of Derwentwater), and a number of other per- 



GEORGE II [chap. 



sons, nearly eighty in all, were put to death. An Act of 
Grace in the next reign restored their estates to the de- 
scendants of those who had forfeited them. As for Charles, 
he wandered alone among the Highlands for five months 
hunted from place to place by the soldiers, till, after many 
perils, he escaped in a French vessel. His future life was a 
sad one. Driven, in accordance with a stipulation of the 
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, from France, he wandered about 
the Continent, forming vain schemes for another invasion, 
and falling at last into degrading habits of drunkenness. He 
died Jan. 30, 1788, leaving no legitimate children. His 
younger brother Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, died in 
1807, and thus ended the ill-starred line of Stuart. 

5. War with France.— Disputes about the boundaries of 
the English and French settlements in North America soon 
plunged the country again into strife. The French encroached 
upon the English colonists ; these resisted, and thus the 
mother countries were ere long engaged in hostilities. The 
war began disastrously for the British, the most grievous blow 
being the taking of the island of Minorca, in 1756, by the 
French ; while Admiral Byng, sent out from Gibraltar to 
relieve the garrison, sailed back again after a partial and 
indecisive engagement with the French squadron. This 
slackness cost the unfortunate admiral his life ; he was tried 
the next year by court-martial, and shot for not having done 
his utmost. The King had provided as far as possible for the 
safety of Hanover by entering into an alliance with Frederick 
the Great of Prussia, and thus England was drawn into the 
Seven Years' War between that prince and a confederacy 
of Continental powers. The English were at this time in 
the depths of despondency, regarding themselves as utterly 
degenerate, and ready to be enslaved. Since Walpole there 
had been no great minister in power. The popular favourite, 
Pitt, was now made Secretary of State, but he was too much 



xr..] INDIA. 203 

disliked by the King to be allowed to keep his office long. 
He knew his own powers : " I am sure," he said, " that I can 
save this country, and that nobody else can." In June 1*757, 
the King was constrained again to accept him as his 
minister. Under his administration the war was carried on 
with new vigour, till at last the tide turned, and successes 
by sea and land came as fast as misfortunes had before. In 
November 1759, Admiral Hawke gained off the coast of 
Brittany a signal victory over the French. In September the 
same year, Ja?nes Wolfe, a young general of Pitt's choosing, 
scaled the almost inaccessible heights on which Quebec 
stands, completely defeated the French army, and fell in 
the moment of victory. As he lay dying, he heard an officer 
exclaim, "They run !" "Who run ?" asked Wolfe, raising 
himself. " The enemy." " Then I die happy." Five clays 
later Quebec capitulated, and within a year the whole of 
the French colony of Canada was in the hands of the 
British. 

6, India. — In India an empire was being won. The chief 
European powers there were the French and the English 
East India Companies. Successive Charters and Acts had 
raised the English Company almost into a sovereign power ; 
it kept a small army, held law courts, and had authority 
to make peace and war with non-Christian princes and 
people. Still the object it pursued was simply the Indian 
trade, of which constantly renewed Acts of Parliament 
gave it a monopoly, and it did not at first aspire to empire. 
The foundations of its dominion were laid by Robert (after- 
wards Lord) Clive, a. young officer of the Company, who, 
though without any military training, proved himself a great 
general and statesman. Clive broke the power of the 
French, who at one time seemed about to gain the pre- 
eminence in the Peninsula, and made the English Company 
the real lords of Bengal by the great victory he won ovei 



204 GEORGE II. [chap. 

the Nabob of that province, Suraj-ad-dowla, at Plassy, 
June 23rd, 1757. Suraj-ad-dowla had in the preceding 
year taken the English settlement at Calcutta,— an event 
memorable for the horrible fate of the English prisoners 
there captured, who, a hundred and forty-six in number, 
were, in the hottest season, crowded into a cell not twenty 
feet square, known as the " Black Hole. " Only twenty-three 
of the captives survived the night. 

7. Death of George. — In the midst of these conquests, 
George died suddenly at Kensington of heart disease, Oct. 
25,1760. His eldest son Frederick Prince of Wales having 
died in 1751, the King was succeeded by his grandson, George 
William Frederick, Prince of Wales. Between the accession 
of George II. and the withdrawal of the country from the 
Seven Years' War in 1763, the National Debt was more 
than doubled. 

8. Reform of the Kalendar. — In 175 1 was passed the 
statute for the reform of the kalendar. The Julian Kalen- 
dar (so called because it owed its origin to Julius Caesar) 
made the year too long at the rate of three days nearly 
in four hundred years. In the 16th century the error had 
been corrected under a regulation of Pope Gregory XIII., 
and the alteration, or New Style, had been in course of 
time accepted by most Christian countries. But in the 
British dominions people still went on with the Old Style, 
until at length the day they called the first of the month 
was in other lands the twelfth — in short, they were eleven 
days wrong in their reckoning. By the statute of 175 1, these 
nominal days were dropped out of the month of September, 
1752, and the New Style adopted. The memory of the 
ignorant opposition made to this reform is preserved in a 
picture by the contemporary painter Hogarth, where a 
Whig candidate for Parliament is represented as flattering 
the prejudices of the mob by having a banner inscribed. 



XL.] RISE OF METHODISM. 205 

" Give us our eleven days." By the same statute, the legal 
year, instead of beginning, as formerly, on the 25th March, 
is reckoned from the 1st January. 

9. The Eddystone Lighthouse. — Three lighthouses have 
been built one after another on the Eddystone Bock. The 
first was swept away in a storm, together with its architect 
Winstanley and the workmen who were busied in repairing 
it ; the second, built mainly of timber, was destroyed by 
fire in 1755. To John Smeaton, a great civil engineer, was 
entrusted the task of replacing it, which he did by the 
present fine tower of stone, completed in 1759. Smeaton 
also made Ramsgate harbour, improved wind and water 
mills, and did many other useful works. 

10. Rise of Methodism. — In this reign began the religious 
movement known as Methodism, of which the promoters 
were two clergymen of the Church of England, George 
Whitejield and John Wesley. The name of Methodists 
first sprang up at Oxford, where it was given in scorn to a 
small association of young members of the University, who 
adopted a devout and rigid method of life, kept fast days, 
meditated and prayed, and visited the prisoners and the 
sick. Of this band were John Wesley, his brother Charles, 
afterwards noted as a writer of hymns, and Whitefield, who, 
after he had taken orders, began to preach with wonderful 
effect. His earnestness, his eloquence, his vehement action, 
and fine voice, which, it is said, could be heard a mile off, 
gave the first impulse to Methodism, which was then simply 
an awakening of a spirit of enthusiastic devotion, and that 
too among classes who had hitherto been neglected. When 
the parish churches were closed against the new teacher, 
Whitefield preached in the open air, which he first did to 
the colliers near Bristol, moving them to tears by his fervid 
oratory ; and his example was followed by his associate 
Wesley. Methodism was frowned upon by the clergy, and 



2o6 GEORGE II. [chap. 

held up to ridicule on the stage ; its preachers were pelted 
and maltreated by the mob, but nevertheless it grew and 
prospered. The two great preachers however ere long 
diverged from each other in opinion : Whitefield, who died 
early, was the leader of the Calvinist section of the Method- 
ists ; Wesley, who died in 1791 at the age of eighty-seven, 
was the founder of the sect called after him, Weslcyan. 
He gave his followers a complete and elaborate organiza- 
tion, although it was not his intention to found a separate 
sect, but rather an order or society within the Church of 
England. The Methodists however, being harassed and 
almost constrained to declare themselves dissenters, gra- 
dually formed themselves into a distinct body. 

11. Literature from the Revolution to George III. — 
The Whigs of the Revolution were fortunate in being able 
to show on their side some of the chief names of the age. 
To them belonged Isaac Newton, and the great jurist and 
politician, Lord Somers, who was one of the counsel for 
the Seven Bishops, and chairman of the committee by 
which the Declaration of Right was drawn up. Of them 
also was John Locke, who in 1684 had, for no crime but 
his friendship with the Whig leader Lord Shaftesbury, been 
ejected by the government from his studentship at Christ 
Church, Oxford. A s'aunch supporter of civil and religious 
liberty, he wrote in defence of toleration ; while his high 
fame as a philosopher was established by the publication in 
1690 of his Essay concerning Human Understanding. A 
less illustrious writer of the same political views was Gilbert 
Burnet (made Bishop of Salisbury after the Revolution), a 
clergyman of Scottish birth, author of the History of the 
Reformation in England, the first volume of which gained, 
him the honour of a vote of thanks from Parliament, which 
was then excited by the Popish Plot. He left a History 0) 
his Own Time, which was published after his death in 171 5. 



XL.] LITERATURE. 207 

The age of Anne was long looked upon as the most 
brilliant period in English literature. Among its chief 
ornaments was the Whig Joseph Addison, who wrote 
both poetry and prose, but was far superior in the 
latter. In his own day his most admired work was 
the tragedy of Cato, now little esteemed ; with modern 
readers his fame rests on the Tatler and the Spectator, 
two periodical papers set on foot by his friend Richard 
Steele, to which Addison was the chief and the best contri- 
butor. His peculiar charm lay in his refined and delicate 
humour, and he did the greatest service to morality by 
purifying literature from the taint of the Restoration, and 
showing that wit was not necessarily allied with vice, nor 
virtue with dulness. Daniel De Foe, a dissenter, who early 
in Anne's reign had been set in the pillory for writing an 
ironical pamphlet professing to express the views of a bigoted 
churchman, was the author of one of the most renowned 
and popular of English fictions, the Life and Adventures of 
Robinson Crusoe. His skill lay in giving such an air of 
reality to his tales — for he wrote many— that the reader can 
hardly believe them to be merely works of imagination. 
Similar power was possessed by the great satirist Jona- 
than Swift, who went over from the Whig to the Tory party, 
and became Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. The best- 
known and most read of his works is Gulliver's Travels, 
the hero of which describes nations of pygmies, of giants, of 
speaking and reasoning horses, with a simplicity and minute- 
ness which make his wildest marvels seem like truth. Under 
this form Swift conveyed the most stinging satire on the 
court of George I., the politics of Europe, the follies of spe- 
culative philosophers, and the vices of mankind. Another 
Tory wit, John Arbuthnot, is believed to have been the 
author of the History of John Bull, a burlesque account 
of the negotiations and war of the Spanish Succession, 



2o8 GEORGE II. [chap. 

From this satire arose the now familiar national name of 
" John Bull." To the reign of George II. belong the 
famous novels, Pamela, and the Histories of Clarissa Har- 
lowe and Sir Charles Graudison, by Samuel Richardson, 
whose name stands high among English authors, though 
his tales are too long-winded to be popular at the present 
day. Three other noted writers of fiction, Henry Fielding, 
Tobias Smollett, and Laurence Sterne, are best remem- 
bered by their respective novels of Tom Jones, Roderick 
Random, and Tristram Shandy. Smollett also wrote a 
History of England, part of which is generally appended 
as a continuation to the History of England by the 
Scottish philosopher, David Hume, who only carried 
his work down to the Revolution. This work of Hume's 
became the generally received version of English history — ■ 
a position which it hardly deserved, as, though good in 
style, it is one-sided and inaccurate. Matthew Prior, 
noted as a writer of light and sparkling verse, flourished 
in the reigns of William and Anne. Alexander Pope, who 
was born in 1688, and died in 1744, is one of the great 
poets of England. His Rape of the Lock, 3. mock-heroic 
tale of a fashionable beauty whose long ringlet was secretly 
cut off by one of her admirers, and his moral and satirical 
poems, among them the Dunciad, in which he fell savagely 
upon the inferior authors of his day, are his chief works. 
His translation of the Iliad of Homer is a fine poem in 
itself, though he caught little or nothing of the spirit and 
tone of his original. Terseness, point, harmony, and cutting 
satire often becoming ferocious and coarse, are Pope's 
characteristics ; his versification was the admiration of 
his contemporaries, for before him no one had written 
heroic couplets with such smoothness. In creed he was a 
Romanist, in character violent and spiteful, and in person 
small and deformed. John Gay was the author of the 



xl.] LITERATURE. 209 

Beggars' Opera, of the Fables, and of the popular ballad 
of Black-Eyed Susan. Nicholas Rowe, who died in 17 18, 
was a playwriter of note, although one of his best tragedies, 
the Fair Penitent, was stolen from Massinger, whose works 
had fallen into neglect. Addison, as has been already said, 
wrote poetry, and some of his hymns are to be found in 
most hymn-books. The hymns also of Isaac Watts, a dis- 
senting minister, are still among the most popular compo- 
sitions of their kind. Equally well known are the beautiful 
Morning and Evening Hymns of Thomas Ken, the good 
Bishop of Bath and Wells, who bore his part among the 
Seven Bishops, and who yet refused, from conscientious 
scruples, to withdraw his allegiance from James. The poems 
called the Seasons, which have always been popular, though 
they are marred by frequent pompousness and affectation, 
are the work of James Thomson, a Scot by birth, who died 
in 1748. Thomson, in conjunction with David Mallet, 
wrote the masque of Alfred, which contains the fine national 
ode of Rule, Britannia. This song, though commonly attri- 
buted to Thomson, is thought by some to have been written 
by Mallet ; the music to it was composed by Dr. Arne. 
Edward Young, who flourished under Anne and the first two 
Georges, wrote the Night Thoughts, a series of poems in proof 
of the immortality of the soul and against unbelief in Chris- 
tianity. William Collins, who died in 1756, was in his own 
time little appreciated, although he was one of the best lyric 
poets of his century. He is however surpassed by Thomas 
Gray, whose famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard was 
published in 1749. A scholar and student, devoting himself 
chiefly to reading, Gray wrote but little, and with great 
care. Among his best pieces is the noble ode of the Bard, 
which, being founded upon the tale of the massacre of the 
Welsh bards, unluckily branded Edward I. with the unde- 
served name of tyrant. 

T P 



GEORGE III. [chap 



CHAPTER XLI. 

GEORGE III. 

George III. ( I )— Treaty of Paris (2)— John Wilkes (3) —revolt of the 
North American Colonies; foundation of the United States ; war 
with France ; death of Chatham ; war with Spain a?zd Holland ; 
invasion of Jersey ; Rodneys victory of the 12th April ; siege of 
Gibraltar (4) — the lord George Gordon Riots (5)— insanity of the 
King ; joy at his recovery ; the Prince of Wales ; Pitt and Fox 
(6) — War of the French Revolution ; lord Hcnvis victory of /he 
1st June; suspension of cash payments f>y the Bank of England ; 
battle of St. Vincent ; Nelson ; mutiny of the Channel Fleet ; 
press-gangs; mutiny at the Nore ; battle of Cam perdown ; Napo- 
leon Buonaparte ; his expedition to Egypt; battle of the Nile ; 
defence of Acre ; death of Tippco Sahib ; confederacy of Russia, 
Denmark, and Sweden ; battle of Copenhagen ; battle of Alex- 
andria ; Peace of Amiens (7) — zuar with Buonaparte ; detention 
of English travellers; Buonaparte seizes Hanover ; threatens to 
invade Great Britain ; overthrows the Austrians and Russians ; 
battle of Trafalgar ; death of Nelson ; death of Pitt ; Berlin 
Decree ; bombardment of Copenhagen (8) — Arthur Welles ley ; 
battle of Assye ; Peninsular War; battle of Vimiera ; death 
of Sir Joint Moore ; battles of Talavera, Salamanca, Vitoria, 
and Toulouse; fall of Buonaparte (9) — return of Buonaparte 
to France ; battle of Waterloo; surrender of Buonaparte (10) 
— war with the United States ; bo?nbardment of Algiers (11) — 
National Debt ; ge?teral distress ; the Luddites ; death of George 
III; Princess Charlotte (12)— Royal Marriage Act (13) — inde- 
pendence of the Irish Parliament; Irish Rebellion rf 1798 ; 
Union of Great Britain and Ireland (14) — Indian affairs; 
Ceylon; discoveries and improz'ements (15) — Harvard; abolition 
of the Slave Trade ; Rom illy (16) — literature, end of 1 8th century 
(17) — early igth century literature (18) — painting (19). 

I. George III., 1760-1820. — George III., eldest son of 
Frederick Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta of Saxe- 
Gotha, though not highly educated, was pleasing in manners 



xli.] AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 211 

and appearance, well-conducted, and well-intentioned. The 
nation, hitherto constantly grumbling at its foreign kings, 
who were never so happy as when out of their kingdom, 
hailed with delight the accession of a born Englishman ; 
and the Tories, who during the late reigns had been in the 
position, unusual to them, of the party opposed to the court, 
transferred the loyalty formerly bestowed on the House of 
Stuart to their new ruler. About a year after his acces- 
sion the King married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg- 
Sirelitz. 

2. Treaty of Paris. — The " Great Commoner" as Pitt was 
called, resigned office in 1761, on his proposal to declare war 
against Spain — which had recently allied itself with France — 
being opposed by his colleagues. The war nevertheless 
broke out ; but peace was made as soon as possible with 
both countries by the Treaty of Paris, 1763, under which 
Great Britain kept Canada and some other conquests from 
France, regained Minorca, and obtained Florida from 
Spain. 

3. John Wilkes. — With the peace began a time of fierce 
factions and unpopular ministers. In 1763 the government 
made itself odious by its illegal arrest of John IVilkes for 
libelling it in a paper called the North Briton. Wilkes after- 
wards became still more famous as the subject of a struggle 
between the House of Commons and the freeholders of 
Middlesex, who maintained their right to return him for their 
representative, although, having been expelled the House, 
he was— so the Commons, by a stretch of power, had 
resolved — incapable of being elected into that parliament. 

4. The American War of Independence. — The severance 
of thirteen North-American colonies from the mother country 
took place in this reign. The government had attempted to 
tax these colonies to defray in part the expenses of pro- 
tecting them ; the colonists -denied the right of the British 

P 2 



212 GEORGE III. [chap. 

legislature to tax them while they were unrepresented in Par- 
liament. The first measure of this kind, the Stamp Act, 
was repealed within a year, as the colonists were on the 
verge of rebellion ; but a duty of threepence a pound laid 
on tea was retained as an assertion of right. Upon this 
the men of Boston in Massachusetts threw overboard the 
cargoes of tea brought into their harbour, and as severe 
measures were taken by way of punishment, the breach 
widened till actual war began; and on the 4th July, 1776, 
the colonies, under the name of the United States of America, 
declared their independence. The capitulation in the next 
year of the British General Burgoyne, at Saratoga, led to 
the acknowledgment by France of the new States, and the 
consequent extension of the war to that country. Pitt, now 
Earl of Chatham, had protested against the taxation of the 
colonies, but he could not bear the idea of seeing the 
British Empire dismembered by France. Though very ill, 
he insisted on going down to the House to speak against 
yielding at this crisis. In the act of addressing the Peers, 
he sank down in a fit ; and, after lingering a few weeks, he 
died, May nth, 1778. Spain joined France in 1779; an( i 
within two years Great Britain found another foe in 
Holland. The capitulation in 1781 of Earl Cornwallis to 
the French and Americans at Yorktown was the crowning 
disaster ; and at last the King unwillingly consented to 
recognize the United States. Among the memorable events 
of this war are the French invasion of Jersey, which was 
defeated by a gallant young officer, Major Pierson, who 
fell in the fight ; Admiral Sir George Rodney's victory, 
April 1 2th, 1782, in the West Indies over the French fleet, 
whose admiral, the Count de Grasse, was compelled to strike ; 
and the famous defence of Gibraltar by General Eliott against 
the forces of France and Spain for three years and seven 
months. Peace was made in 17.83, and Minorca and Florida 



xli.] PITT AND FOX. 213 

were given back to Spain. In North America, Canada, 
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and the 
Hudson's Bay country still remained part of the British 
Empire. 

5. The Lord George Gordon Riots. — In June 1780, there 
were great riots in London ; the populace, led by the half- 
crazed Lord George Gordon, being inflamed by the repeal 
of some enactments against the Romanists. For nearly a 
week the capital was in the power of a furious mob, who 
burned Newgate, and destroyed the fine library of the Chief 
Justice, Lord Mansfield. 

6. Pitt and Fox. — In 1788 the King was afflicted with 
insanity, and though he recovered for a time, he had fresh 
attacks. About 181 1 he permanently lost his reason, after 
which his eldest son, George Augustus Frede?ick, Prince of 
Wales, ruled in his stead as Regent. There was great joy 
at his first recovery ; for, though his obstinacy of disposition 
had at one time made him unpopular, of late his kindly 
manners and simple life had endeared him to his subjects ; 
while the Prince was thought so ill of that his rule was 
dreaded. The leading statesmen of the day were C/iarles 
James Fox, and William Pitt, second son of Lord Chatham. 
The first was a man of ability and eloquence, generous and 
patriotic, but a gambler, and disliked by the King as the 
companion and supposed corrupter of the Prince of Wales. 
Pitt, the rival of Fox, and his equal in talents and eloquence, 
had become prime minister in his twenty-fifth year, and 
his power surpassed even that of his father. 

7. War of the French Revolution. — In 1789 there began 
in France the political troubles which led to the Great French 
Revolution, in which the King, Louis XV L, lost both his crown 
and his life, and a Republic was set up. Pitt was at first 
inclined to leave France to arrange its own affairs ; but as 
the Republicans plainly showed an intention to extend theii 



2*4 GEORGE III. [chap. 

principles by force of arms, and their violence and crimes 
culled forth a strong feeling against them among the English 
upper and middle classes, war broke out, the French being 
the first to declare it. Admiral Eai'l Huwe, on the ist June, 
j 794j gained a hard- won battle in the Channel, and the 
English felt justly proud of the humanity they had shown 
in saving the lives of drowning enemies, whose government 
had only five days before forbidden quarter to be given to any 
Englishman or Hanoverian. But the land operations were for 
the most part signal failures, and Great Britain, some of her 
allies having fallen off, sought, but ineffectually, for peace. 
There was much discontent at home ; while the government 
was harsh and even arbitrary, and the cost of the war was 
heavy, the Bank of England being, in February 1797, so 
drained that it stopped cash payments. Next month came 
the news that on the 14th February Sir John Jervis, with 
only fifteen sail of the line to the enemy's twenty-five, had 
defeated, off Cape St. Vincent, the fleet of Spain, then in 
alliance with France. In this action two ships were boarded 
and taken by Commodore Horatio Nelson, the greatest of 
the many great sailors of Britain. But the trust of the 
nation in its navy received an alarming shock from the 
sudden mutiny of the Channel Fleet, when ordered to sea. 
The sailors were not without grievances to excuse them. 
The Crown had a right to impress seamen, and the press- 
gangs, hated and feared in every port, carried men off by 
force to the King's ships, where the pay was small and 
the food bad. The sailors demanded an increase of wages 
to be secured to them by statute, and a pardon ; and, after 
some delay, Lord Howe was sent to meet the mutineer 
leaders with the required Act and the King's pardon in his 
hand. On the 17th May the fleet put to sea. A second 
and more violent mutiny broke out in the ships at the Nore, 
but, as this did not extend to the other fleets, obedience 



x li . ] WA R OF THE FR ENCH RE VOL UTION. 2 1 5 

was re-established in a few weeks, and the ringleaders 
were tried and executed. The sailors made ample atonement 
by fighting valiantly in the victory won October nth, by 
Admiral Adam Duncan, off Camperdown, over Admiral 
Van Winter and the fleet of the Dutch, who at that time 
formed a Republic dependent upon France. For the next 
eighteen years the history of Europe is the history of 
Napoleon Buonaparte, who by surpassing military genius 
raised himself to be despotic ruler of France, and annexed or 
reduced to vassalage all the western part of the Continent of 
Europe. In 1798, when he was still only a general of the 
French Republic, he undertook an expedition to Egypt, 
escaping on his passage Nelson and the English fleet, who 
were looking out for him. After Buonaparte had landed, 
Nelson found the French fleet lying in the Bay of Aboukir, 
and there defeated it in the great Battle of the Nile, August 1, 
1798. Being wounded in the head, he was carried below, 
when the surgeon left the patient then under his hands to 
attend to him. " No ! " said Nelson, " I will take my turn 
with my brave fellows." For this victory he was created 
Baron Nelson of the Nile. Acre was gallantly held against 
Buonaparte by Sir Sidney Smith and the Turks ; while 
Tip poo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore in India, an old foe of 
England, to whom the French gave hopes of aid, was 
vanquished and slain at the storming of Seringapatam by 
General David Baii'd. In December 1800, Russia, Denmark, 
and Sweden formed a confederacy to resist the code of 
maritime law upheld by England, but the death of the 
Czar soon put an end to this war, during which Nelson 
took or destroyed the Danish fleet in the battle of Copen- 
hagen. In Egypt the batde of Alexandria, March 21, 1801, 
was gained by Sir Ralph Abercromby over the French, 
who before the end of the year evacuated that country. 
Wearied of war, Great Britain, which had once haughtily 



216 GEORGE III. [chap 

declined negotiation with Buonaparte, was now glad t< 
conclude a peace at Amicus, 1802, although nearly all hei 
conquests were thereby surrendered. 

8. War with Buonaparte. — The peace was short-lived, a 
dispute about the possession of Malta leading to the re- 
newal of hostilities in 1803. In retaliation for the seizure 
of French vessels without a formal declaration of war, a 
practice which England maintained to be lawful, Buonaparte 
arrested all the English in France, 10,000 peaceful travellers, 
and detained them for the next eleven years. He seized 
Hanover, and collected troops and transports at Boulogne 
for the invasion of Great Britain. The nation boldly pre- 
pared itself for the expected struggle, nearly 400,000 volun- 
teers being quickly enrolled. In August 1805, Buonaparte, 
who had now taken the title of Emperor of the French, 
determined at last to cross the Channel ; but the fleet on 
which he counted for the protection of his transports had 
been chased up and down the seas by the British, and 
was now, together with that of his ally Spain, blockaded in 
Cadiz. He turned away, and swooping upon the armies of 
Austria and Russia, with which countries Pitt had formed a 
coalition, laid them prostrate. Lord Nelson, meanwhile, as 
soon as the French and Spanish fleets came out, attacked 
them off Trafalgar, October 21, 1805, hoisting, before the 
action began, the famous signal, "England expects every man 
to do his duty." Proudly careless of his life, he stood on the 
deck of his ship, the Victory, with the stars of the different 
orders with which he had been invested glittering on his 
breast, thus making himself a mark for the enemy's riflemen. 
In the heat of the action he received his death-wound from a 
musket ball, and, though the victory was so complete as to 
put an end to all plans of invasion, the joy of Britain was 
clouded by sorrow for the loss of her hero. Another great 
man died early the next year — Pitt, whose heart had been 



XLT.] THE PENINSULAR WAR. 217 

broken by Buonaparte's triumph over the coalition. The 
French conqueror now set himself to ruin British trade, 
issuing, in revenge for the blockade of the ports between 
Brest and the Elbe, the Berlin Decree* which declared a 
blockade of the British Isles, and prohibiting the Continent, 
as far as his power reached, from all correspondence or trade 
with them. Retaliatory orders were issued by the English 
government, and further orders by Buonaparte, till between 
them the whole foreign trade of neutrals was stopped. In 
August 1807, Copenhagen was bombarded by the British, in 
order to force the Danes to give up their fleet, which was 
understood to have been placed at the disposal of Buonaparte 
for an invasion of England. 

0. The Peninsular War. — At last Britain found a soldier 
who could match Napoleon — Arthur Wellesley, who had 
distinguished himself in India, of which country his brother 
the Marquess Wellesley was Governor-general, and where he 
himself had carried on a successful war with the Mahratta 
chiefs, over whom he gained the battle of Assye, September 
23, 1803. In 1808, Buonaparte having seized the kingdoms of 
Portugal and Spain, the Spanish patriots called upon Eng- 
land for help, which was promptly given, and thus began 
the Peniiisular War, an obstinate struggle Oi six years, in 
which Sir Arthur Wellesley, though not as yet opposed to 
Buonaparte himself, triumphed over several of his generals. 
On the 2 1st August he defeated the French general Jnnot at 
Vimiera, but his superior officer would not follow up the 
victory, and the enemy was allowed to evacuate Portugal 
under the Conve?ttion of Cintra. Towards the end of the 
year Sir John Moore entered Spain, but being forced to 
retreat, fell at Coruha, January 16, 1809. Wellesley, being 
soon afterwards raised to the chief command, henceforth 
conducted the war with great generalship. On the 28th 
J uly, he defeated Marshal Victor at Talavera, an achieve- 



2i 3 GEORGE III. [chap. 

ment for which he was raised to the peerage as Viscount 
Wellington. He had many difficulties in carrying on the 
war ; for, while the French generals took by force every- 
thing they needed, the British generals, allies of Spain, had 
no such resource, and were hard put to it for provisions. 
His perseverance however triumphed over every obstacle. 
Among the celebrated actions of the war are the storming 
of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian ; the victory 
of Salamanca over Marshal Marmont, July 22, 181 2 ; and 
that of Vitoria on the 21st June, 181 3. Step by step the 
French, now commanded by Marshal Soult, were driven 
across the Pyrenees into their own country, where the battle 
of Toulouse was fought, April 10, 1814; while the Emperor 
of Russia and the King of Prussia, now allies of England, 
had already entered Paris. Buonaparte abdicated, and was 
allowed to hold the sovereignty of the little isle of Elba. 

10. Battle of Waterloo. — Not a year had passed when 
Buonaparte returned to France. His old soldiers rallied 
round him, while the English commander-in-chief, now 
Duke of Wellington, and the Prussian general Bliicher, 
gathered their forces together in the Netherlands. After 
a severe engagement between the English and French at 
Quatre Bras, Wellington and Buonaparte joined battle near 
Waterloo, June 18. 1815. The day was stubbornly contested, 
the British standing with the utmost firmness for nearly 
eight hours, until the Prussians came up to their support. 
The Imperial Guard, the flower of Buonaparte's army, then 
making a desperate charge upon the British, was beaten 
back ; upon this, Buonaparte, seeing that all was lost, fled ; 
the victory, gained at a terrible cost of life, was complete, 
The allies thereupon entered Paris ; while Buonaparte, finding 
it impossible to carry out his design of escaping to the United 
States, surrendered himself on board the British man-of-war 
Bdlerophon, and was sent captive to St. Helena, where he 



xli.] DEATH OF GEORGE III. 219 

ended his days. The conquests which were kept by Great 
Britain at the end of these wars were the Cape of Good- 
Hope, the Dutch possessions in Ceylon, and Berbice and 
other Dutch settlements in Guiana ; the islands of Mauritius 
and the Seychelles, taken from the French ; some West 
Indian islands, from the French and Spaniards ; and in 
Europe, the islands of Malta and Heligoland, the latter of 
which had belonged to Denmark. 

11. War with the United States. Bombardment of 
Algiers. — In 1812 war was declared against Great 
Britain by the United States, who were irritated at the 
damage to their trade arising out of the orders issued in 
retaliation for the Berlin Decree, and who disputed the claim 
of Great Britain to impress her subjects found on board 
American vessels. This contest, in which the United States 
attempted, though without success, to conquer Canada, 
was brought to an end early in 181 5. The last military 
operation of this reign was the English and Dutch bombard- 
ment in 1 8 16 of Algiers, whose Dey or prince was thereby 
compelled to set free nearly two thousand Christian slaves. 

12. Home Affairs. — The National Debt had been more than 
trebled by the war ; and as years of strife had impoverished 
all Europe, there was now scarcely any foreign market for 
British manufactures, and little demand for labour at home. 
In 1 8 16 came a season of scarcity, and with wheat rising* to 
famine prices, and a surplus of labour, the distress and dis- 
content of the people were great. The " Ltiddites" (that 
is, bands of workmen leagued to break the stocking and lace 
frames which interfered with their employment,) who had 
first arisen in 18 12. and had never been thoroughly put 
down, now revived with new violence. The blind and aged 
George III. died, January 29, 1820, at Windsor Castle, 
leaving six sons and five daughters. His eldest son, the 
Prince Regent, who had borne rule for the last nine years, 



220 GEORGE III. [chap. 



had only one child, Princess Charlotte Augusta, who in 
1816 married Prince Leopold 0/ Saxe-Coburg, and died the 
next year. 

13. The Royal Marriage Act. — In 1772 was passed the 
Royal Marriage Act, by which the descendants of George II. 
(other than the issue of princesses married into foreign 
families) are incapacitated from marrying under the age of 
twenty-five without the consent of the sovereign. After that 
age, marriage may be contracted upon due notice, unless 
both Houses of Parliament signify their disapprobation. 
The King's anger against his brothers, the Dukes of 
Gloucester and of Cumberland, who had both made mar- 
riages which displeased him, led to this measure. 

14. Irish Affairs. — In 1782 Ireland obtained the indepen- 
dence of its Parliament, thus ceasing to be dependent upon 
Great Britain, though subject to the same King. During the 
War of the French Revolution an association of malcontents 
called the United Irishmen entered into correspondence 
with France, from which more than one expedition was sent 
to their aid. Of these the most formidable, under General 
Hoche, was scattered by a tempest ; a smaller one in 1 798 
made its way into Longford, where it was constrained to 
surrender, while the United Irishmen, who rose in rebellion, 
were put down with cruel severities. After this outbreak 
had been quelled, Ireland was, on the 1st January, 1801, 
united to Great Britain, and thenceforth sent her represen- 
tatives to the British Parliament. The cross of the patron 
saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, was at the same time added to 
those of St. George and St. Andrew on the national flag. 

15. Indian Affairs. Discoveries and Improvements. — 
During the long reign of George III. there were many wars 
in India, Hyder Ali, Rajah of Mysore, his son and successor 
Tippoo, and the Mahratta chiefs Scindia and Holkar, being 
anions the most formidable enemies. Warren Hastings^ 



xli.] DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS. 221 

who in 1774 became the first Governor-general, ranks as 
one of the greatest of English statesmen who have borne 
rule in the East ; and to his abilities it was owing that 
at the close of the American War of Independence, Great 
Britain, whilst losing elsewhere, had increased her power in 
India. Hastings was in 1786 impeached by the Commons on 
charges of injustice, oppression, and extortion ; but after a 
trial by the House of Lords, which was spun out over 
seven years, was acquitted. Lord Cornwallis, who became 
Governor-general in 1786, waged a successful war with Tippoo 
Sahib ; and the British dominion was still further strength- 
ened and extended under the governorships of the Marquess 
Wellesley and the Marquess of Hastings. The whole of 
Ceylon was also in 18 15 brought under British rule. New 
openings for colonization were made by the researches 
of Captain James Cook, who in 1768 started on the first of 
his voyages. In the course of these he sailed round New 
Zealand, which seems to have been unvisited by Europeans 
since its discovery by the Dutchman Tasman in 1642, and 
surveyed the eastern coast of New Holland or Australia, 
to which he gave the name of New South Wales : he also 
discovered New Caledo7iia. On his third voyage, in 1779, 
when the great navigator was at the Sandwich Islands, a. 
group which he had discovered and named, he was slain in a 
sudden fray with the natives. Among his other high merits, 
Cook was distinguished by the justice and fairness of his 
dealings with the tribes he visited, and by his care and 
success in preserving his crews from that former scourge of 
seamen, the scurvy. Some years after his death New South 
Wales was colonized as a place of transportation for criminals. 
Van Diemeiis Land or Tasmania, which had been discovered 
by Tasman, and New Zealand also, began to be colonized in 
the early part of the nineteenth century. Not less important 
were the triumphs of science and enterprise at home. Dr % 



222 



GEORGE Jh 



Edward Jenner, whose name should ever be remembered 
with gratitude, was the inventor of vaccination as a preventive 
of small-pox, his first experiment being made in 1796. Great 
advances were made in astronomy and chemistry, and vast 
improvements were effected in the arts of industry, which 
raised Britain to her present position as a manufacturing 
country. Navigable canals had begun to be constructed. 
Early in the reign of George III., James Brindley made 
the famous canal from Worsley to Manchester, a work of 
which the engineering difficulties were then thought so great 
that Brindley and his employer Francis Egerton, Duke of 
Bridgewater, were looked on as madmen for engaging in 
it. The manufacture of pottery was raised to a flourishing 
condition by J osiah Wedgwood ; and that of iron, by Dr. 
Roebuck's process of smelting by pit-coal instead of charcoal. 
Machinery was applied to spin and weave cotton, the 
spinning frame being first made in 1768 by Richard Ark- 
•wright, originally a barber of Bolton. But the crowning 
achievement of the age was that of the Scotsman James 
Wall, who, though not actually the inventor of the steam- 
engine, so improved it as to place a new power in the 
hands of mankind. Steam-boats came into use about 1812. 
A few years earlier, gas began to be employed, Pall Mall 
being first lighted with it in 1807. 

16. Reforms.— Among the notable men of this reign must 
be named some who spent their lives in endeavouring to 
remedy the evils and abuses around them. John Howard is 
famous for his labours in the reform of prisons. Being in 
1773 High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, he was shocked by the 
condition in which he found the gaols, and he thereupon 
devoted himself to the task of examining into their state 
throughout the country, and of calling the attention of Par- 
liament to them. Such inquiries were undertaken at no 
small hazard ; for the prisons of the time, without order or 



XLI. ] LITER A TURE. 2 2 3 

discipline, with their inmates left at the mercy of hard and 
extortionate gaolers, were dens so foul and infected that to 
enter them was risk of life. Thomas Clarkson and William 
Wilbe?-force are honoured as the leaders of the party which 
did away with the slave-trade. Although, as was decided in 
1772 by the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, slavery 
could not legally exist in England, her colonies, like those 
of other nations, employed the labour of negro-slaves, who 
were imported in vast numbers from Africa. Clarkson was 
the first who effectually stirred up public feeling against this 
cruel traffic, which the society of Quakers had already de- 
nounced. He and his associates were seconded in Parliament 
by Wilberforce, the son of a Hull merchant, and, at last, after 
agitating the matter for nearly twenty years, they succeeded 
in 1807 in obtaining the passing of an Act abolishing the 
slave-trade. Fox, although he did not live to see the 
measure carried through Parliament, did much towards 
bringing it about. Sir Samuel Romilly is distinguished for 
his efforts to improve the penal laws, which at that time 
were — nominally at least, for they were seldom executed 
— the most severe in Europe. Romilly, by his exertions, 
obtained the doing away of the punishment of death in the 
case of many small offences. 

17. Literature— End of Eighteenth Century. — Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, the author of the well-known English Dictionary, 
reigned in the early years of George III. as a kind of literary 
sovereign, although as an author he belongs equally to the 
preceding reign. It was in 1737 that he first went up to 
London with his pupil Garrick, afterwards so famous as 
actor, to seek his fortune by writing, which was then but an 
an ill-paid trade. After many years of hardship, his fame 
became established. George III., soon after his accession, 
granted him a pension, and Johnson, reverenced by the new 
generation around him, who looked up to his judgment, and 



224 GEORGE III. [chap. 

admired his sonorous, balanced, and Latinized style, spent 
the rest of his life in comfort. His biography, written by 
his devoted worshipper James Boswell, who noted his every 
word and action, has done almost as much to perpetuate 
his fame as any of his own works in. verse or prose. Horace 
Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert, and author of the wild 
romance of the Castle of Otranto, showed his power chiefly 
in his letters, which extend over the period from 1735 to 
1797, and by their liveliness and ease, their fund of gossip 
and anecdote, have won him the praise of " the best letter- 
writer in the English language." Oliver Goldsmith, an idle, 
good-natured, and improvident man, ever in difficulties, was 
the author of a novel, the Vicar of Wakefield, a poem, the 
Deserted Village, and a comedy, She stoops to conquer, 
which have all been equally popular. In 1769, during the 
struggle between the House of Commons and Wilkes, 
began to appear the famous Letters of Junius, a series 
of powerful and savage attacks, mainly directed against 
the then prime minister, the Duke of Grafton, and his 
friends. " Junius" — for so his letters were signed — 
concealed himself so well that it has never been known 
for certain who he was. Adam Smith, a Scotsman, 
published in 1766 his great work on political economy, 
entitled A11 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the 
Wealth of Nations. Edwara Gibbon, the historian of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is distinguished 
by the wide range of his learning, by his coldly majestic 
style, and by his power of grave and quiet sarcasm, 
which, being himself an unbeliever in Christianity, he par- 
ticularly delighted in directing against the early professors 
of the faith. The drama was enlivened by the brilliant 
comedies of the Rivals and the School for Scandal, which 
were written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In poetry there 
is for some time little to note except the verse of Goldsmith ; 



LITERATURE. 225 



but in the later part of the century there arose a poet who 
had the vigour to discard the monotonous and mannered 
style which had been in vogue ever since the days of Pope. 
This was William Cowper, whose poems are marked by 
deep religious feeling, by a genuine love of nature, and by 
a sarcastic power hardly to be looked for in one who was 
morbidly sensitive, and at times afflicted with melancholy 
madness. He died in 1800. 

18. Early Nineteenth Century Literature. — Cowper's works 
were the first symptoms of that awakening of the spirit of 
poetry which took place about the end of the eighteenth 
century. The times were such as make poets ; for the great 
upheaving of the French Revolution, which brought forth as 
it were a new world, and the long struggle with Napoleon, 
inspired new ideas of liberty and fresh ardour of patriotism. 
The opinions of the Jacobins, as the extreme revolutionists 
in France were called, took strong hold of two young poets, 
Robert S out hey and his great companion, Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge, who however both sobered down in after-life. 
Southey, whose fierce republicanism had once afforded sub- 
jects for the witty parodies of Hookham Frere and George 
Canning in the Anti-Jacobin, turned into a somewhat bigoted 
Tory. Both he and Coleridge belonged to what was called 
the Lake School, of which William Wordsworth waf; the 
head. The circumstance of these three fellow-poets at one 
time all living in the Lake country gave rise to the name, 
which was peculiarly applicable to Wordsworth from the 
minuteness and truth with which he described the scenery 
and people of his native North. As his theory and style 
of poetry altogether differed from those of any writer 
before him, and were not of a kind to be popular, 
Wordsworth had to encounter much derision before his 
position as a man of genius was established. Thomas 
Campbell, whose works breathe a spirit of patriotism 

T O 



226 GEORGE III. [chap. 

and a rational love of freedom, is chiefly remembered 
by his shorter poems, such as the spirited songs of 
Ye Mariners of England, written in expectation of war 
with Denmark, and the Battle of the Baltic, commemorating 
Nelson's attack on Copenhagen in 1801. Sir Walter Scott 
was long the most popular poet of his day, and when he lost 
that position, he became the most popular novelist. In 1805 
he surprised the world by the wild warlike vigour of the 
Lay of the Last Minstrel. This was followed up by other 
metrical romances of Scottish and English chivalry. More 
perhaps was done by Scott than by anyone else to call forth 
that appreciation of the literature, art, feelings, and manners 
of the Teutonic and Celtic races which was gradually dis- 
placing the exclusive admiration of Greek and Roman an- 
tiquity. He took to prose when he saw that his poetical 
renown was waning before that of a younger rival. This 
was George Gordon, Lord Byron, whose first cantos of Childe 
Harold's Pilgrimage, published in 181 2, had such immediate 
success that, as he himself said, he woke one morning and 
found himself famous. Byron led a wild and unhappy life, 
and, splendid as his poems are, they are marred by moral 
faults which increased with his years. In 1824, when only 
thirty-six years of age, he died at Mesolongi, whither he 
had gone to fight for the Greek patriots against Che Turks. 
His friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose peculiar religious 
and social opinions had made him so unpopular that he 
left England, had been drowned in the Mediterranean 
two years earlier. Shelley has been called " the Poet of 
Poets," because his writings, though not suited to ordinary 
minds, can be appreciated by those who are themselves 
poets. In prose the most notable works of the time were 
Scott's Waverley Novels, by which he won a still higher 
place than that to which he had attained as a poet. 
Waverley , the first of the set, was published anonymously in 



XLi.] PAINTING. 227 

1814, and was quickly followed by a host of other novels and 
romances. Those in which he drew the characters of his 
countrymen, of Scottish Jacobites and Scottish Puritans, 
are considered to be his best. Another novelist, in a very 
different line, was Jane Austen, who represented the ordinary 
uneventful life of the English middle classes with exquisite 
truth and humour. 

19. Painting. — Nothing has hitherto been said about 
painting, because England was behindhand in the art, 
and it was not until the time of the Georges that a native 
school was formed. The most famous names in the early 
history of painting in England are those of foreigners. Hans 
Holbein, whose flattering portrait of Anne of Cleves had a 
share in leading Henry VIII. to send for her as his bride, 
was a German. Sir Anthony Vandyck, the great artist who 
has preserved for us the features of Charles I. and his 
nobles, was a native of Antwerp. The Vandeveldes, father 
and son, both noted sea-painters, belonged to Holland, from 
which country the elder one was invited by Charles II. Sir 
Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller, the first of whom 
portrayed the beauties of the court of Charles II., the 
other, those of the court of William III., were Germans. 
There were indeed some good native painters, such as 
Willium Dobson, who has been called the English Vandyck ; 
Robert Walker, who painted Cromwell and most of his 
officers ; and Samuel Cooper, a fine miniature painter of 
the days of the Commonwealth and Charles II. But after 
these, portraiture, and indeed all branches of painting, went 
down, until an eminent artist arose in William Hogarth, 
who flourished under George II. He was the son-in-law 
of Sir James Thornhill, a. painter much in request during 
the reigns of Anne and George I. for the decoration of 
palaces and public buildings, whose best works adorn the 
dome of St. Paul's and the hall of Greenwich Hospital. 
Q 2 



228 GEORGE III. [chap. 



Hogarth struck out a style of his own, painting satirical 
scenes, sometimes humorous, sometimes gloomy and tragic ; 
and his pictures, drawn from the life of all classes, are 
records of the costume and the manners of his age. In 
1768, four years after Hogarth's death, was founded the 
Royal Academy, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great 
portrait-painter of England, was the first president. Reynolds 
is accounted the founder of the English school of painting. 
Other noted artists of the time are Richard Wilson, a 
painter of landscape, and Thomas Gainsborough, of land- 
scape and portraits. Among the many pictures of Benjamin 
West, who was born in Pennsylvania, then a British colony, 
and who became the favourite artist of George III., one of 
the most celebrated is the Death of General Wolfe, in which, 
instead of representing the figures in ancient Greek or Roman 
costume, as was then the fashion with painters, he had the 
good sense to depict them in dresses such as they actually 
wore. The successor, though not the equal, of Reynolds 
in portraiture was Sir Thomas Lawrence, who, from the 
early part of the nineteenth century until his death in 
1830, possessed the public favour. Sir David Wilkie, a 
wScotsman, drew admirable scenes of village and farmhouse 
life ; and the great landscape painter Joseph Mallord 
William Turner was in the middle of his career at the end 
of the reign of George III. Thomas Bewick, a Northum- 
brian, is famous for his beautiful woodcuts of beasts, birds, 
and rural scenes. 



XLii.] GEORGE IV. 229 



CHAPTER XLII. 

GEORGE IV. 

George IV. ; Cato Street Conspiracy (i) — Queen Caroline {2)— foreign 
affairs ; battle of Navarino (3) — li Catholic Emancipation''' (4) — • 
death of George IV. ; Metropolitan Police force ; Burmese War {$). 

1. George IV., 1820-1830. — Within a month of the acces- 
sion of the Prince Regent as George IV., discovery was 
made of a plot, which is known as "the Cato Street" or 
" Thistlewood Conspiracy" for assassinating the King's 
ministers at a Cabinet dinner. On this charge the ringleader, 
Thistlewood, was hanged, together with four accomplices. 

2. Queen Caroline. — In 1795, when still Prince of Wales, 
George, yielding to his fathers demand, and tempted by the 
prospect of payment of his debts, had married his cousin, 
Caroline Princess of Brunswick-Wolf enbiittel, an indiscreet 
and coarse-mannered woman, from whom he soon separated. 
Not long after his accession, a bill of pains and penalties 
was brought in by the ministry to degrade and divorce her 
on charges of misconduct. After an examination of witnesses 
before the House of Lords, the bill was finally abandoned, 
to the delight of the populace, who were all on the Queen's 
side. But the King was determined to resist her claim to be 
crowned as his consort, and in this he was supported by the 
Privy Council. The Queen, being resolved to be present at 
the coronation, appeared early on the morning of the cere- 
mony before the doors of Westminster Abbey, but was 
everywhere refused admission. Not long after this humi- 
liation she was taken ill, and died August 7, 1821. 

3. Foreign Affairs. — The foreign policy of Great Britain 
during this period, particularly when guided by George 
Canning, diverged from that of her allies, Austria, Russia, 



230 GEORGE IV. [chap. 

and Prussia. These, having joined together in the "Holy 
Alliance" as they called it, made themselves the opponents 
of revolution, and of reform won by revolution, throughout 
Europe ; while England refused to assent to the principle of 
interference in the internal affairs of other states. The last 
official act of Canning as prime minister was to settle a 
treaty between Great Britain, France, and Russia, with the 
view of putting a stop to the cruel warfare carried on by the 
Turks in Greece, which had risen against their yoke. The 
hope that the object of the treaty would be attained without 
fighting was not realized, for the allied fleet and that of the 
Turks and Egyptians came unexpectedly to a battle in the 
port of Navarino (October 20, 1827), when the Turkish 
fleet was in great part destroyed. 

4. Catholic Emancipation. — The chief measure of this 
reign was the Catholic Emancipation Act. Till the reign of 
George III. the Papists had remained subject to penal laws 
of such severity that the great lawyer Blackstone could find 
no better defence for them than that they were seldom put 
in force. But by later statutes many of these restrictions 
and penalties had been removed from those Romanists who 
would take a certain prescribed oath, and at last all grades 
in the army and navy were virtually opened to them. From 
both Houses of Parliament, and from certain offices, fran- 
chises, and civil rights, they were still shut out by the 
oath of supremacy, and by the declarations required of 
members of Parliament and holders of such offices against 
transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacri- 
fice of the mass. On the Union with Ireland, Pitt thought 
himself bound to remove these disabilities ; but King George 
III. made it a point of conscience to refuse to entertain such 
a measure. Canning was always in favour of the emanci- 
pation, but after his death in 1827 the hopes of the 
Romanists were cast down by the accession to office of 



xi.ii.] DEATH OF GEORGE IV. 



a ministry opposed to their claims. About the same time, 
the " Catholic Association " in Ireland showed its power 
by the election of the popular Roman Catholic politician 
Daniel CConnell to a seat in Parliament. It was now 
felt necessary by the ministry to bring in a bill for ad- 
mitting Romanists to Parliament, to all civil and military 
offices and places of trust or profit under the Crown (except 
those of Regent, Lord Chancellor in England and Ireland, 
and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and a few others), and to 
corporate offices, upon their taking an oath to support the 
existing institutions of the State, and not to injure those 
of the Church. The Duke of Wellington, who was at that 
time prime minister, avowed in the House of Lords that 
he had brought forward this measure in order to avert civil 
war. The bill received the royal assent on the 1 3th April, 
1829. In the previous year a concession had been made 
to the Protestant Dissenters by repealing so much of the 
Corporation and Test Acts as required persons taking office 
to communicate according to the rites of the Church of 
England. 

5. Death of George IV. — The King, who passed the latter 
years of his life in seclusion, died at Windsor Castle, June 
26, 1830. During his reign the laws relating to the trial 
and punishment of offences were consolidated and amended 
the penalties being made less severe, but more certain ; and 
the Metropolitan Police force, which greatly increased the 
security of London, was established in 1829 by Mr. (after- 
wards Sir Robert) Peel, who was at that time Secretary of 
State. For about two years, from 1824 to 1826, the English 
in India were at war with their neighbours the Burmese, each 
side having gradually extended their possessions till they met 
those of the other. The war ended successfully for the Bri- 
tish, who gained some territory thereby. George IV. was suc- 
ceeded by his brother William Henry, Duke of Clarence. 



232 WILLIAM IV. [chap. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



WILLIAM IV. 



William IV. ; the Reform Bill; new party names (i) — Abolition of 
Slavery (2) — death of King William ; Hanover separated from 
Great Britain ; refor?ns ; East India Company (3) — burning of 
the Houses of Parliament (4) — railways ; Stephenson (5). 

I. William IV., 1830-1837. The Reform Bill. — William 
Duke of Clarence, who had passed his early life in the navy, 
came to the throne in troublous times. Soon after his ac- 
cession, rick-burning and machine-breaking spread alarm 
through the Southern agricultural counties ; and the great 
question of Parliamentary Reform was pressing for im- 
mediate consideration. The system of parliamentary ?-e- 
prese?itation had long stood in need of reform. New 
towns had sprung up, but they were unrepresented ; 
ancient but decayed boroughs, containing perhaps seven, 
six, or even one elector, still returned members. The 
property in such boroughs was, in the majority of in- 
stances, in the hands of some one large owner, by 
whom the elections were controlled, and whose influence 
and nomination were notoriously bought and sold ; elec- 
toral rights were various, and in most towns a small 
corporation, open to control and corruption, exclusively pos- 
sessed them. The necessity of improving upon this state of 
things had been seen by many politicians, among them the 
two Pitts, the younger of whom had three times brought 
forward plans 'of reform. But it was not until 1816 that, 
mainly owing to the cheap publications of William Cobbett, 
Reform became a popular cry, and clubs sprang up in which 



xliii.] * THE REFORM BILL. 233 

universal suffrage and annual parliaments were advocated. 
These, and more violent projects, tending at times to riot and 
insurrection, had led to the adoption of stringent provisions 
for repressing sedition. Nevertheless, during the Regency 
and the reign of George IV., the question of Reform 
had been raised at intervals in Parliament, and the public 
desire for it continued to increase. This feeling had been 
strongly displayed at the elections for the new Parliament ; 
and great was the indignation at finding from the King's 
speech, and the language held by the Duke of Wellington, 
that no Reform was to be looked for from the Government. 
Such was the ferment that the King was advised against 
going in state to dine at the Guildhall, as usual at the be- 
ginning of a reign, 'and Wellington and Peel resigned office a 
few days afterwards, when they were succeeded by a ministry 
under the leadership of Earl Grey. On the 1st March, 1831, 
Lord John Russell, on the part of the new Government, 
brought in a Reform Bill, which was so much more sweeping 
than had been expected that it was received by the Opposi- 
tion with mingled amazement and scorn. The ministry, being 
defeated, prevailed on the King to dissolve the Parliament. 
A new House of Commons, elected to the cry of " The Bill, 
the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill" sent the desired 
measure up to the Lords, by whom it was rejected. In- 
cendiary fires, and riots at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol, 
marked the autumn of 1831, whilst public excitement became 
general and intense. A third Reform Bill was brought in 
by the ministry, and passed by the Commons ; and on 
finding both the Crown and the people against them, the 
Peers were at last induced to give up their opposition to 
the measure, which became law, June 7, 1832. Reform Bills 
were also passed for Scotland and Ireland. By the Act 
of 1832, fifty-six boroughs were disfranchised, and forty- 
three new ones, together with thirty county constituencies, 



234 WILLIAM IV. [chap. 



were created ; a lol. householder qualification being esta- 
blished in boroughs, and the county franchise extended to 
copyholders, leaseholders, and tenant occupiers of premises 
of certain values. The Reformed Parliament, the object of 
great hopes and greater fears, met January 29, 1833. Setting 
vigorously to work, it passed several important Acts ; with- 
out however realizing the forebodings of the anti-Reform 
party, who had thought a revolution was at hand. It was 
about the beginning of this reign that the Tories took the 
name of Conservatives, as denoting that they sought to pre- 
serve the ancient institutions of the country. Their political 
opponents were already known by the name of Liberals. 
That of Radical had come up about 1818, being then applied 
to those who desired a radical reform of Parliament. 

2. Abolition of Slavery. — Although the slave-trade had 
been put down wherever English power reached, slavery still 
existed in the Colonies. In August, 1833, was passed a 
measure of which Englishmen are justly proud — the Act 
for the Abolition of Slavery, at the cost of twenty millions 
sterling in compensation to the slave-owners. 

3. Death of King William. — The King died at Windsor 
Castle, June 20, 1837. By his wife Princess Adelaide ofSaxe- 
Meiningen, he had two daughters, who both died in infancy. 
He was succeeded on the throne of Great Britain and Ire- 
land by her present Majesty, Alexand?'ina Victo?'ia, the only 
child of his brother Edward Duke of Kent. The succession 
to the throne of Hanover (which in 181 5 had been constituted 
a kingdom) being limited to the male line, that country passed 
to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of 
George III., and thus became separated from Great Britain. 
Among the important Acts of this reign are those for the 
reform of the poor-laws and of municipal corporations. Alter- 
ations were also made in the constitution of the East India 
Company. The government of the British territories in India 



XLi I [. ] RAIL WA YS. 235 

remained in its hands, but it ceased altogether to be a com- 
mercial body. 

4. The Houses of Parliament. — On the 16th October, 1834, 
the Houses of Parliament were accidentally burned down. 
Westminster Hall was happily saved from the destruction. 
In the next reign the Parliament houses were replaced by the 
present building, the work of Sir Charles Barry. 

5. Railways. George Stephenson. — The autumn of 1830 
is memorable for the opening of the Liverpool a7id Man- 
chester Railway, on which passenger carriages were drawn 
by a locomotive steam-engine at the speed of a race-horse. 
Neither the road nor the engine were wholly new things ; for 
wooden tramways had been used in collieries as early as the 
17th century, while many of the improvers of the steam-engine 
had thought of turning it to locomotive purposes, and some 
had succeeded in so doing. But no one had made locomotives 
at once economical and efficient before George Stephenson, 
who by degrees greatly improved both engines and roads. 
Stephenson was a self-taught Northumbrian, who from an 
engine-fireman had risen to be engineer of a colliery near 
Killingworth, and who amongst his other inventions had 
devised a safety-lamp for the use of miners, upon the same 
principle as that constructed about the same time by the 
great chemist Sir Humpluy Davy. Still, with all that 
Stephenson had yet done, the advantages of locomotives 
were doubted, so that many would have preferred to use 
horses on the new Liverpool and Manchester line. But 
steam-power carried the day, and Stephenson and his son 
Robert constructed the famous engine " Rocket." From 
that time dates the use of railways and railway engines, 
whose promoters had once been jeered at for thinking that 
a speed of twenty miles an hour might possibly be attained 
with safety, and that stage-coaches and post-chaises might 
be superseded. 



236 VICTORIA. [chap. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

VICTORIA. 

Quten Victoria; the Prince Consort (1) — abandonment of the 
protective duties on corn (2) — the Chartists (3) — wars in China, 
India, and elsewhere; the Crimean War (4) — the Indian 
Mutiny ; Chinese wars ; the Abyssinian expedition (5) — Canada 
(6) — legislation ; penny postage ; newspapers ; parliamentary 
reform ; legislation for Ireland (7) — Arctic voyages; the Franklin 
expedition ; inventions (8) — literature (9). 

1. Victoria, 1837. — Although called to the throne in a time 
of political restlessness and discontent, Queen Victoria, then 
only eighteen years of age, was received by her subjects with 
warm loyalty. On the 10th February, 1840, her Majesty mar- 
ried her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Got ha. 
The Prince, whose public and private conduct gained him 
the respect of the whole nation, died December 14th, 1861. 

2. The Repeal of the Corn Laws. — The chief question 
of the time was the repeal of the Corn Laws, or laws laying 
heavy duties on the importation of foreign corn. Many 
upheld these restrictions, on the ground that home agricul- 
ture ought to be encouraged, or protected, by keeping up the 
price of corn, and that a country ought, as far as might be, 
to depend upon itself for its supply of food. On the other 
side, those who held Free-trade doctrines argued that the 
effect of the Corn Laws, so far as they were operative, was to 
set, for the benefit of the landowners, an artificial limit to the 
wealth and population of the kingdom in general. A number 
of zealous free-traders, in 1839, formed an association, the 
Anti-Corn-Law League, which employed itself in enlighten- 
ing, by speech and writing, the public mind as to the ill effect 



xliv.] REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 237 

of protective laws. The League gradually made way ; but it 
was not till 1846, when the failure of the potato-crop was 
threatening a fearful famine in Ireland, that its cause 
triumphed, the leader of the Conservatives, Sir Robert Peel, 
then prime minister, bringing in and carrying, to the dismay 
of many of his party, bills for abolishing, or reducing to a 
merely nominal amount, the duties on foreign corn, cattle, 
and other productions. This repeal of the corn duties, though 
carried in 1846, did not come into complete operation till 
1849. The honour of the measure was attributed by Peel 
to Richard Cobden, the foremost of the free-trade politicians, 
whose doctrines — that every man and every nation should 
be free to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, 
without the laws interfering to favour some particular class 
of producers — are now recognised and acted upon in Great 
Britain. 

3. The Chartists. — Side by side with the Corn-law 
struggle went the Chartist agitation. The Chartists were 
for the most part working men, who suffered from the dis- 
tress then generally prevailing, and who looked to further 
reforms in the system of parliamentary representation for 
the means of mending their condition. Their name came 
from their "People's Charter" the document in which they 
set forth their demands — universal suffrage, vote by ballot, 
annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal 
electoral districts, "the abolition of the property qualifica- 
tion of members, and payment for their services. After 
some rioting in 1839, the Chartists remained tolerably quiet 
until 1848, when, excited by the revolutions which took 
place that year in France and other parts of the Continent, 
they determined to make show of their strength. Muster- 
ing on the 10th April, on Kennington Common, they de- 
signed to march through London to the House of Commons, 
carrying a petition embodying their demands, which they 



23* VICTORIA. [chap. 

boasted, though not with truth, to bear more than five million 
signatures. This was to be presented by Feargus O "Connor ; 
one of the members for Nottingham. Both the Government 
and the great body of the people met this threatening move- 
ment with firmness. The Londoners, to the number of a 
quarter of a million, enrolled themselves as special con- 
stables ; the Chartists were not allowed to recross the bridges 
in procession, and the whole affair passed off quietly, without 
the troops which the Duke of Wellington had posted out 
of sight, but at hand, having any need to show themselves. 
From this time the Chartists ceased to be of any importance 
as an organized body ; but three of the reforms for which 
they contended have sinct been carried out by the Acts 
which abolished the property qualifications, and granted 
well-nigh universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. 

4. Wars in China, India, and elsewhere. The Crimean 
War. — The wars of this reign hitherto have been waged 
in distant parts of the world. In 1840, England, together 
with other powers, took the part of the Sultan against 
Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, and Acre was bom- 
barded and taken by the fleet under Admiral Stopford and 
Commodore Napier. In this action war- steamers were 
employed for the first time. In the same year a war with 
China arose out of the attempts of the Chinese Imperial 
Government to put down the contraband trade in opium 
carried on between India and that country. One of the 
results was the cession of the island of Hong-Koiig to 
Great Britain. A war which began in 1838 in Afghanistan 
is memorable for the disasters which befell the British 
troops in occupation of that country. Forced by a rising 
of the natives to retreat from Cabul, in 1842, they were 
cut off almost to a man in the mountain passes. After 
these misfortunes had been retrieved, a war with the 
Ameers of Sind broke out in 1843, of which the result 



XLiv.] THE INDIAN MUTINY. 239 

was the conquest of that country by Sir Charles Napier, 
a soldier trained in the Peninsular War, who further distin- 
guished himself by the success with which as Governor he 
ruled the territory he had won. At the end of 1845, and 
again in 1 848, there were wars with the Sikhs of the Pun- 
jaub, ended by the victory of Goojerat, won by Lord Gougk, 
February 2 1 st, 1849, and the annexation of the Punjaub to the 
British dominions. To these was added, in 1852, the province 
of Pegu, taken from the Burman Empire. In 1854, Great 
Britain and France, afterwards joined by the King of 
Sardinia (now of Italy), engaged, on behalf of the Turks, 
in a war with Russia, which was mainly carried on in the 
Crimea. The chief actions were the victories of the Alma, 
September 20th, and of Inkerman, November 5th. During 
the winter the British army investing Sebastopol, ill supplied 
with food or shelter, in the bitterest weather, underwent 
grievous suffering and loss. The siege lasted 349 days, 
at the end of which time the place was evacuated by the 
Russians in September 1855 ; and in the course of the next 
year peace was made. 

5. The Indian Mutiny. Chinese Wars. The Abys- 
sinian Expedition. — Early in 1857 the mutiny of the 
Sepoys, or native soldiers of the East India Company's 
army, excited by a mistaken idea that some interference 
with their religion was intended, came like a thunder-clap 
upon the English. The regiments at Meerut, having risen 
in mutiny, and killed a number of English men and women, 
•marched into Delhi, where, amid like slaughters, they pro- 
claimed its nominal King as Emperor of Hindustan. At 
Cawnpore the European garrison were treacherously slain, 
after having surrendered on terms to the rebel Nana Sahib, 
who, upon the approach of General Henry Havelock's troops, 
proceeded to murder all the English women and children in 
his hands. After entering Cawnpore, Havelock, who had 



240 VICTORIA. [chap. 

inflicted many defeats upon the mutineers, succeeded, in 
company with Sir James Ontram, in relieving the beleaguered 
garrison of Lucknow. There the two generals remained 
until Sir Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde, came to 
their aid, and, forcing his way in, brought off the garrison, 
together with the sick, the women, and children. The 
mutiny, which had at first threatened the overthrow of the 
British dominion, was put down in the course of the next 
year, when, by Act of Parliament, August 2nd, 1858, the 
government of India was transferred from the Company to 
the Crown. Among military matters there only remain to note 
fresh quarrels with China in 1856, and again in i860, when 
the allied English and French entered Pekin ; the formation 
of the Volunteer force in 1859, under the fear of a French 
invasion ; and the successful Abyssinian Expedition, sent out 
in 1867, under the command of Sir Robert Napier (now 
Lord Napier of Magdald), to rescue certain British subjects 
and other Europeans held captive by Theodore King of 
Abyssinia. 

6. Canada. — The beginning of the reign found Lower 
Canada in a state of discontent, which soon broke out into 
revolt. Peace however was before long restored, and a better 
system of policy was established. At a later period, in 1867, 
the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick 
were by statute federally united into one Dominion under 
the name of Canada, with a constitution similar in principle 
to that of Great Britain and Ireland, bein^ ruled by a 
Governor- General in the name of the Queen, and two 
Houses of Parliament. 

7. Legislation. — In 1840 the scheme proposed by Mr., 
afterwards Sir Rowland Hill, for the carriage of letters 
throughout the United Kingdom at uniform rates, now well 
known as the " penny postage? was put into practice. The 
immediate consequence was that the number of letters sent 



xliv.] LEGISLATION. 241 

through the post was more than doubled, the former high 
rates of postage having acted as a check on letter writing. 
In 1855 the stamp duty on newspapers ceased to be compul- 
sory. In 1858 an Act was passed empowering either House 
of Parliament to modify, in the case of Jews, the oath re- 
quired to be taken by members. The House of Commons 
has availed itself of the provisions of this Act to admit 
Jewish representatives. In accordance with a prevalent 
desire for further parliamentary reforms, a new Reform 
Bill was in 1867 brought in and carried by the Conser- 
vative ministry then in power, of which the chiefs were the 
Earl of Derby and Mr. Disraeli. By this, which became 
law August 15th, 1867, a vote was given, in boroughs, to all 
ratepayers and to persons occupying lodgings of the yearly 
value of 10/., and the county franchise was greatly extended. 
By an Act passed in 1872, votes in parliamentary elections 
are to be given by ballot, instead of open voting, as hereto- 
fore. In 1869 and 1870 great changes were made in Irela?id 
by measures carried by the Liberal ministry under the leader- 
ship of Mr. Gladstone. By one Act the Irish Church was 
disestablished ; and by another, out-going tenants became 
entitled to compensation in respect of improvements made 
by them on their holdings. 

8. Discoveries and Inventions. — From 1818 fresh efforts 
had been made to find a north-west passage, and Sir 
Edward Parry and Sir John Franklin explored far into the 
Arctic regions. Franklin's last expedition was made in 1845, 
and from this neither he nor his companions ever returned. 
After several expeditions under various leaders in search of 
him, in the course of which at least three north-west pas- 
sages have been discovered, Captain (now Sir Leopold) 
Af'Clintocfc, who went out in 1857, found at Point Victory a 
paper which had been left there in 1848 by the then survivors 
of the Franklin party, recording the death of Sir John in 

T R 



242 VICTORIA. [CHAP. XLIV. 

1847, and the subsequent abandonment of their ice-beset 
vessels. The various branches of science have been culti- 
vated with ardour and success during the present period. 
Early in the reign photography and electric telegraphs were 
brought into use ; the latter have since been greatly de- 
veloped, and more than one submarine cable has been laid 
down from Ireland to America. 

9. Literature. — Among authors (living writers not being 
taken into account), Thackeray, Dickens, and Lord Lytton 
are to be noted as novelists. Thomas Arnold and George 
Grote are distinguished for their histories of Rome and Gi-eece; 
Henry Hart Miiman, Dean of St. Paul's, for the History of 
Latin Christianity. Henry Hallam, author of the Consti- 
tutional History of England, is characterized by his judicial 
impartiality ; Lord Macaulay, who tells, from the point of 
view of a Liberal politician, the story of the Revolution of 
1688, combines the brilliancy of romance with many of the 
best qualities of an historian ; while the labour and research 
of Kemble, Paigrave, and Lingard have all likewise tended 
to give us more accurate and vivid ideas of the earlier 
History of England. 



INDEX, 



Abolition of Slavery, Act for the, 234. 

Abyssinian expedition, 240. 

Acre, defence of, 215 ; bombardment 

of, 238. 
^Elfgifu, or Elgiva, 18. 
./Elfheah, or St. Alphege, Archbishop 

of Canterbury, 20. 
^Elfthryth, or Elfrida, 19. 
./Ethelbald, Kin?, 12. 
iEthelbert, King of Kent, conversion 

of, 9 ; laws of, 14. 
.(Ethelbert, King, 12. 
./Ethelred I., King, 12. 
i^Ethelred II., King, 19, 20. 
/Ethelstan, King, 16. 
yEthehvulf, King. 12. 
Aghrim, battle of, 186. 
Agricola, Cnseus Julius, 3. 
Aidan, St., Bishop of Lindisfarne, 

10. 
Aix la-Chapelle, Peace of, 201, 202. 
Alban, St., 4. 

Albert, Prince Consort, 236. 
Alexandria, battle of, 215. 
Alfred, or /Elfred, Kii'g, 12; reign, 

13 ; death, 15. 
Alfred, son of yEthelred, 22, 23. 
Algiers, bombardment of, 219. 
American War of Independence, 212. 
Amiens, Peace of, 216. 
Angles, 1, 5, 9. 
Anglo-Saxons, 5. 
Anne, Queen (Princess of Denmark), 

177, 179, 189; reign, 191 ; death, 195. 
Anne ot Bohemia, Queen (wife of 

Richard II.), 83. 
Anne Boleyn, Queen (wife of Henry 

VIII.), 116— 118. 
Anne of Cleves, Queen (wife of Henry 

VIII), 118, 227. 
Anne Neville, Queen (wife of Richard 

III.), 102, 103, 106, 108. 



Anselm, St., Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 41, 43, 44. 

Anson, Commodore, voyage of, 200. 

Antoninus Pius, Emperor, 4. 

Architecture, 31, 65, 183. 

Arkwright, Richard, 222. 

Armada, the Spanish, 137. 

Arthur, British prince, 6, 86, 113. 

Arthur of Britanny, 56. 

Arthur, Prince of Wales, marriage and 
death of, 113. 

Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
84. 85. 9i- 

Assye, battle of, 217. 

Athenree, battle of, 73. 

Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Roches- 
ter, 198. 

Augustine, St., Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 9. 

Australia, 221. 

Austria, Leopold, Duke of, 54. 

Austrian Succession, War of the, 
200. 

Azincourt, battle of, 93. 



Babington, Anthony, 135. 

Bacon, Francis, 143, 147. 

Baffin's Bay discovered by Bylot and 
Baffin, 145. 

Balliol, John, King of Scots, 68. 

Bank of England, founded, 187 ; stops 
cash payments, 214. 

Bannockburn, battle of, 73. 

Barnet, battle of, 103. 

Baronet, title of, 144. 

Barons, 32, 33. 

Barons' Wars, with John, 58, 59 ; with 
Henry III ,62, 64. 

Beachy Head, battle of, 185. 

Beckf t, Thomas, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 49—51, 87, 119, 

R 2 



244 



INDEX. 



Bedford, John, Duke of, 91, 96, 97. 
Benevolences, 103, 107, 112, 143. 
Berlin Decree, 217, 219. 
Bertha (wife of King iEthelbert of 

Kent), 9. 
Bible, 81, 120, 141, 145. 
Black Prince, the, 78. See Edward 

Prince of Wales. 
Blake, Robert, Admiral, 160, 161, 163. 
Blenheim, battle of, 192. 
Boadicea, or Buddug, revolt of, 3. 
Bolingbroke, Henry of, see Henry 

Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, 

194—196. 
Bombay, 169. 
Bonner, Edmund, Bishop of London, 

125, 130, 132. 
Bosworth, battle of, 108. 
Boyne, battle of the, 186. 
Bradshaw, John, 156, 158, 167. 
Bretigny, Peace of, 78. 
Bridgewater, Francis Egerton, Duke 

of, 222 
Brindley, James, 222. 
Britons, the, 1 — 5. 
Bruce, E Iward, in Ireland, 73. 
Bruce, Robert, a claimant of the 

Scottish crown, 68. 
Bruce, Robert, Earl of Carrick 

(Robert I. of Scotland), 69, 73 
Brunanburh, battle of, 16 ; song of, 30. 
Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke 

of, 142, 143, 150. 
Buckingham, Henry Stafford, Duke 

of, 104 — 107. 
Buonaparte, Napoleon, 215 — 218. 
Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 132. 
Byng, Admiral, shot, 202. 



Cabal, the, 171. 

Cabul, retreat from, 238. 

Cade, Jack, 98. 

Caesar, Caius Julius, 2. 

Calais, 77, 78, 131. 

Calcutta, Black Hole of, 204. 

Caledonia, 1. 

Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), 240. 

Camperdown, battle of, 215. 

Canada. 203, 211, 213, 219, 240. 

Canning, George, 225, 229, 230. 

Cape St. Vincent, battle of, 214. 

Caractacus, or Caradoc, 2 

Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach, 

Queen (wife of George II.), 199, 

200. 



Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, 
Queen (wife of George IV.), 229. 

Catesby, Robert, 141. 

Catholic Emancipation Act, 230. 

Cecil, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, 132, 
139, 142. 

Cerdic and Cynric, 6. 

Charles I. King, his journey to Spain 
while Prince of Wales, 143 ; reign, 
149 ; beheaded, 157. 

Charles II., King, 107, 157 ; defeated at 
Worcester, 159 ; escape, 160 ; de- 
claration from Breda, 165 ; restora- 
tion, 166 ; reign, 167 ; death, 173. 

Charles V., Emperor, 116, 121, 128. 

Charles IV., King of France, 74, 76. 

Charles V., King of France, 79. 

Charles VI., King of France, 93, 96. 

Charles VII., King of France, 94, 96, 

97- 
Charles, King of Spain, death of, 188. 
Charles XII., King of Sweden, 197. 
Charles Edward Stuart (the Young 

Pretender), 198, 201, 202. 
Charters, 34, 45 ; Charter of Liberties 

granted by Henry I., 43 ; Charter, 

the Great, 58, 65, 172 ; Charter 

of the Forest, 65 ; Confirmation of 

the Charters, 70. 
Chartists, the, 237. 
Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of, 200, 

203, 211, 212. 
Clarence, George, Duke of, 102, 

104. 
Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 80, 88. 
Clarence, Thomas, Duke of, 91, 94. 
Clarendon, Constitutions of, 50. 
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 

171, 181. 
Claudius, Emperor, 2.' 
Clive, Robert, Lord, 203. 
Cnut or Canute, King, 20 — 22, 27. 
Cobbett, William, 232. 
Cobden, Richard, 237. 
Cobham, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord, 92. 
Commission, the High, 133, 151, 152; 

the Eccleshstical, 176, 178. 
Commons, House of, first formed, 64. 
Cook, Captain, 221. 
Copenhagen, battle of, 215, 226; bom« 

barded, 217. 
Corn Laws, 236. 
Cornwallis, Earl, 212, 221. 
Corporation Act, 168, 231. 
Council of the Norih, 150, 152. 
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Can* 

terbury, 116, 120, 126, 130. 
Crecy, battle of, 76, 
Crimean War, 239. 



INDEX. 



245 



Oomwell, Oliver, 154, 156; in Ireland, 
159 : wins the battles of Dunbar and 
Worcester, ib ; turns out the Long 
Parliament, 161 ; becomes Lord 
Protector, 162 ; his death, 163 ; 
character, 164 ; insult to his corpse, 
167. 

Cromwell, Richard, 164. 

Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 
118 — 120. 

Culloden, battle of, 201. 

Cumberland, Frnest Augustus, Duke 
of (King of Hanover), 234. 

Cumberland, William. Duke of, 201. 

Cuthbert, St., Bishop of Lindisfarne, 



Danby, Earl of, 178, 179. 

Danegeld, 20. 

Danes, the, n, 27. 

David I., King of Scots, 47. 

David II., King of Scots (David 
Bruce), 77. 

David of Wales, 67. 

Davis, John, 136. 

Davy, Sir Humphry, 235. 

Dermot, King of Leinster, 52. 

Despenser, Sir Hugh le, 73, 74, 

Dettingen, battle of, 200. 

Devonshire, Earl of, 178, 179. 

Dissenters, 176, 189, 231. See als/, 
Nonconformists. 

Domesday, 37. 

Dover, Treaty of, 171. 

Drake, Francis, 136 — 138. 

Druids, 2, 3. 

Dudley, Edmund, 114, 115. 

Dunbar, battle of, 159. 

Dunstan, St., Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 17—19. 



E. 



East India Company, 139, 169, 203, 

234, 240. 
Eddystone Lighthouse, 205. 
Edgar, or Eadgar, King, 18. 
Edgar, the ./Etheling, 26, 37, 43. 
Edgehill, battle of, 153. 
Edmund, or Eadmund, St., King of 

the East- Angles, 12, 20. 
Edmund the Magnificent, King, 16. 
Edmund Ironside, King, 2c. 
Edmund, son of Henry III , 62. 
Edrtd, or Eadred King, 17. 
Edward, or Eadward, the Elder, King, 

»5- 



E'dward the Martyr, King, 19. 
Edward the Confessor, King, 23, 24, 

28 ; his laws, 43. 
Edward I., King, 62 — 65 ; reign, 66 ; 
death, 69 ; Confirmation of the 
Charters obtained from, 70 ; expels 
the Jews, 71 ; story of his massacre 
of the bards, 68, 209. 

Edward II., King, 67, 69 ; reign, 71 ; 
deposition, 74 ; murder, 75. 

Edward III., King, 74; reign, 75; 
death, 80. 

Edward IV. King (Duke of York), 
100 ; reign, 101 ; death, 104. 

Edward V., King, reign, 104; dis- 
appearance of, 106 ; supposed re- 
mains of, discovered, 107. 

Edward VI., King, 118, 121; reign, 
122 ; death, 125 ; schools and hos- 
pitals, 126. 

Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black 
Prince), 77 — 80. 

Edward, Prince of Wales (son of 
Henry VI.), 100 — 103, no. 

Edwin, or Eadwine, King of the 
Northumbrians, 9. 

Edwy, or Eadwig, King, 17. 

Egbert, or Ecgberht, King, n. 

Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen (wife of 
Henry II.), 49, 51. 

Eleanor of Castile, Queen (wife of 
Edward I.), 67, 70. 

Eleanor of Provence, Queen (wife of 
Henry III.), 61, 63. 

Eliot, Sir John, 150. 

Elizabeth, Queen (daughter of Henry 
VIII. ), 118, 121, 127 — 129 ; reign, 
131 ; death, 139 ; literary acquire- 
ments, 147. 

E izabeth Wydevile, Queen (wife of 
Edward IV.), 102, 105. 

Elzabeth cf York, Queen (wife of 
Henry VII.), 108, 111. 

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia (daugh- 
ter of James '!.), 143, 190. 

Elizabeth (daughter of Charles I.), 
157, 158. _ 

Empson, Richard, 114, 115. 

England, name of, 1, 5. 

English, the, origin of, 5 ; religion, 6 ; 
government, 7 ; converted to Chris- 
tianity, 8 ; manners and customs of, 
26. 

English language, 85. 

Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of, 
138. 

Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of, 
153. CS4- 

Evesham, battle of, 64. 



246 



INDEX. 



F. 



Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 154, 156. 
Falkland. Lucius Carey, Viscount, 154. 
Faukr-s, Guido or Guy, 142. 
Feudal or military tenures, 32 ; abo- 
lished, 33, 167. 
Fitz-Gerald, Maurice, 52. 
Fitz-Osborn, William, 36. 
Fitz-Stephen, Robert, 52. 
Flamsteed, John, 182. 
Flodden, battle of, 115. 
Folkland, or public land, 7, 33. 
Fontenoy, battle of, 200. 
Forests, 38, 46. 
Fox, Charles James, 213, 223. 
Fox, George, 164. 
Francis I., King of France, 115. 
Franklin, Sir John, 241. 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 199, 204. 
Fro^isher, Martin, 136, 137. 
Fyrd, 7. 

G. 

Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Win- 
chester, 120, 125, 128. 

Gaunt, John of, see Lancaster, Duke 
of. 

Gaveslon, Piers, 71 — 73. 

Geoffrey, son of Henry II., 51. 

George I., King (Elector of Bruns- 
wick-Liineburg), 194 ; reign, 195); 
death, 198. 

George II., King, 198; reign, 199; 
death, 204. 

George III., King, 204; reign, 210; 
death, 219 ; displeased at his bro- 
thers' marriages, 220 ; opposed to 
the Roman Catholic claims, 230. 

George IV., King (Prince Regent), 
213, 219: reign. 229; death, 231. 

George, Prince of Denmark, 177, 191. 

Gibraltar, 192, 194, 212. 

Gilds, 34. 

Ginkell, General (Earl of Athlone), 
186. 

Glendower, Owen, 89, 90. 

Gloucester, Gilbert of Clare, Earl of, 

64 
Gloucester, Henry, Duke of, 157, 158. 
Gloucester, Humfrey, Duke of, 91, 97, 

98. 
Gloucester, Richard, Duke of, see 

Richard III. 
Gloucester, Robert of Caen, Earl of, 

47—49, 86. 
Gloucester, Thomas of Woodstock, 

Duke of, 80, 83, 84. 



Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, 23. 
Great Britain^. King of, 144 ; United 

Kingdom ot, 193. 
Gregory the Great, Pope, 8. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 125, 127, 128, 146. 
Gunpowder Plot, 141. 
Guthrum, Danish King of East-An- 

glia, 13, 14. 



H. 

Habeas Corpus Act, 172, 175. 

Hadrian, Emperor, 4. 

Hamilton, Duke of, 156, 158. 

Hampden, John, 151 — 153. 

Harold I., King, 22. 

Harold II., King, 24 — 26. 

Harold Hardrada, King of the 
Norwegians, 25. 

Harthacnut, King, 22. 

Harvey, William, 182. 

Hastings, battle of, 25, 27. 

Hastings, Lord, beheaded, 105. 

Hastings, Marquess of, 221. 

Hastings, Warren, 220 

Havelock, General Henry, 239. 

Hawkins, John, 136, 137. 

Hengest and Horsa, legend of, 5. 

Henrietta Maria, Queen (wife of 
Charles I.), 149, 153. 

Henry I., King (son of William I.), 
grants of charters, 34, 43, 45 ; 
attacked by his brothers, 40 ; reign, 
42 ; death, 45 ; confusion after his 
death, 46. 

Henry II., King, 33, 48; reign, 49; 
death, 52. 

Henry III., King, 60; reign, 61 ; 
death, 65 ; begins to rebuild West- 
minster, 24, 65. 

Henry IV., King (Duke of Hereford 
and Duke of Lancaster), banish- 
ment and return of, 84; made King, 
85 ; reign, 88 ; death, 91. 

Henry V., King, story of his imprison- 
ment for contempt, when Prince of 
Wales, 90 ; present at the burning 
of Badbee, 91 ; reign, 92; death, 04 ; 
tomb, 95. 

Henry VI., King, 95; reign, 96; 
deposition, 100 ; flight and capture, 
101 : restoration, 102 ; death, 103. 

Henry VII., K.ing( Earl of Richmond), 
107, 108; reign, n 1; death, 114; 
his chapel at Westminster, 66, 107, 
114. 

Henry VIII., King, 113; reign, 115; 



INDEX. 



247 



death, 121 : attends to naval matters, 

122 ; his will, 121, 122, 133, 140. 
Henry, son of Henry II., 50, 51. 
Kenry Frederick, Prince of Wales (son 

of James I.), 141, 143. 
Henry VI., Emperor, 54. 
Herbert, Admiral (Earl of Torrington), 

178, 185. 
Hereford, Henry of Bolingbroke, 

Duke of, see Henry IV. 
Hereford, Humfrey Bohun, Earl of, 

70. 
Hereford, Earl of (son of the above), 

73- 
Hereward, 37. 
Honorius, Emperor, 5. 
Hotspur (Sir Henry Percy), 89. 
Howard, Charles, Lord, of Effingham, 

137- 
Howard, John, 222. 
Howe, Admiral Earl, 214. 
Hubert de Burgh, 61. 
Hudson, Henry, discovers Hudson's 

Bay, 145. 
Hundred Years' War, beginning of 

the, 76 ; renewed by Henry V., 93 ; 

end of, 97. 



Ida, King of the Northumbrians, 6. 

Independents, 133, 154, 155. 

Indulgence, Declarations of, 176, 177. 

India, 14, 139, 203, 217, 220, 234, 239. 

Ine, King of the West Saxons, 11, 14. 

Innocent III., Pope, 57 — 59. 

Ireland, 1 ; Danes in, 12 ; slave-trade 
with, 28 ; English conquest of, 52 ; 
Bruce in, 73; Simnel in, 111; Ireland 
raised to the rank of a kingdom, 
122 ; Church of Ireland, 133 ; Ty- 
rone's rebellion, 138, 139 ; planta- 
tion of Ulster, 144 ; rebellion of 1641, 
152 ; Cromwell in, 159 ; united with 
the English Commonweahh, 163 ; 
settlement of, 169 ; Tyrconnel in, 
176 ; Irishry and Englishry, 184 ; 
war in, 185; Irish f rleitures, 1S8 ; 
obtains an independent Parliament, 
220 ; rebellion n. ib. ; Union with 
Great Britain, ib. ; Catholic Asso- 
ciation, 231 ; Reform Bill passed 
for, 233 ; famine in, 237 ; recent legis- 
lation for, 241. 

Ireton, Heniy, 156, 159, 167. 

Isabel of France, Queen (wife of Ed- 
ward II.), 72, 74, 76. 



J- 

Jacobites, 184, 194, 197 ; conspiracy 
for the assassination of William III., 
187 ; insurrection of 1715, 196 ; of 
1745, 201. 

Jamaica, taken by the English, 163. 

James I., King of Scots, 94. 

James IV., King of Scots, 113, 115. 

James V., King of Scots, 120. 

James I. of England and VI. of Scot- 
land, King, 134, 139 ; reign, 140 ; 
death, 143. 

James II., King (Duke of York), 157, 
168, 170, 172,173 ; reign, 174; abdi- 
cation, 180 ; lands in Ireland, 185 ; 
at the Boyne, 186; death, 188. 

James Francis Edward Stuart (the Old 
Pretender), 177 — 179, 188, 194, 197. 

Jane Seymour, Queen (wife of Henry 
VIII.), 118. 

Jeffreys, Lord Chancellor, 175, 176, 
179. 

Jenner, Dr. Edward, 222. 

Jersey, French attack upon, 212. 

Jews, 70, 164, 241. 

Joan of Arc, 96. 

John, King (son of Henry II.), 34, 52, 
54, 55 ; reign, 56; death, 60. 

John the Good, King of France, 78. 

Jutes, 5, 11. 

Juxon, Bishop of London, 157. 



K. 



Kalendar, reform of the, 204. 
Katharine of Aragon, Queen (wife of 

Henry VIIL), 113, 116. 
Katharine of Braganza, Queen (wife 

of Charles II. ), 169. 
Katharine of France, Queen (wife of 

Henry V.), 94, 95, 107. 
Katharine Howard, Queen (wife of 

Henry VIIL), ji8. 
Katharine Parr, Queen (wife of Henry 

VIII.), 118, 123. 
Kent, people of, 2 ; kingdom of, 5. 



Labourers, Statutes of, 78, 98. 

La Hogue, battle of, 186, 18S. 

Lambert, John, 165. 

Lancaster, Henry of Bolingbroke, 

Duke of, see Henry IV. 
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of, 

79, 80, 84, 87. 



248 



INDEX. 



Lancaster, Thomas, Earl of, 72, 73. 
Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, 

37, 39- 

Langton, Stephen, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, 57 — 59- 

Latimer, Hugh, 123, 130. 

Laud, William, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 150 — 152, 155. 

Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 
^S, i37> *3 8 - 

Leicester, Simon of Montfort, Earl of, 
63—65, 70. 

Lewes, battle, and mise of, 63. 

Limerick, surrender of, 186. 

Lincoln, John de la Pole, Earl of, 108, 
in, 112. 

Literature, 28, 86, 109, 146, 181, 206, 
223, 225, 242. 

Llywelyn of Wales, 61, 65, 67. 

Lollards, 8i, 82, 91, 92, 109. 

London, or Londinium, burned by 
Boadicea, 3 ; its first bishop, 9 ; 
beats off the Danes, 20 ; after the 
battle of Hastings, 26 ; description 
of, 28 ; privileges of, 34 ; the Barons 
admitted into, 58 ; its liberties 
secured, 59 ; Londoners in the 
Barons' War, 63, 65 ; the insurgent 
peasants in, 82 ; Cade in, 98 ; corpo- 
ration founds hospitals and schools, 
126 ; in the Armada year, 137 ; the 
Plague in, 169 ; the Great Fire of, 
170 ; after the flight of James, 179 ; 
Protestant riots in, 213 ; metropolitan 
police, 231 ; the Chartists in, 238. 

Londonderry, siege of, 185. 

Longchamp, William, Bishop of Ely, 

54- 

Lords, House of, 8, 63, 156, 157, 162, 

165, 168. 

Louis VII., King of France, 49 — 

Louis, son of Philip Augustus (after- 
wards Louis VIII. of France), 60, 61. 

Louis XL, King of France, 103, 
104. 

Louis XIV., King of France, 169 — 
171, 178, 180, 183, 185, 187, 188, 192 
— 194. 

Lucknow, relief of, 240. 



M. 



Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, 

58, 65, 172. 
Malcolm, King of Scots, 17. 
Malcolm III., King of Scots, 40. 
Malplaquet, battle of, 193. 



Mar, Earl of. 196. 

March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of 

80. 
March, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of 

(grandson of the above), 88, 89, 92. 
Margaret of Anjou, Queen (wife of 

Henry VI.), 97, 99 — 103. 
Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., 

Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke 

of, 179, 191— 194. 
Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 179, 

191, 194. 
Marston Moor, battle of, 154. 
Mary I., Queen (daughter of Henry 

VIII.), 116, 125, 126; reign, 127; 

death, 131. 
Mary II. , Queen (wife of William 1 1 1. ), 

177, 180, 184, 1S8. 
Mary, Queen of Scots, 121, 123, 133 

—135- 
Mary of Modena, Queen (wife of 

James II.), 177, 179. 
Mary Tudor, Queen of France and 

Duchess of Suffolk, 115, 121, 125, 

140, 141. 
Matilda, the Empress, 44 — 48. 
Matilda of Boulogne, Queen (wife of 

Stephen), 48. 
Matilda (Edith), Queen (wife of Henry 

I), 43, 44- 
Matilda of Flanders, Queen (wife of 

William I.). 35. 
Mercia, kingdom of, 6, 10 ; earldom 

of, 21. 
Methodists, 205. 
Monk, George, Duke of Albemarle, 

160, 161, 163, 165, 169, 170. 
Monmouth, James, Duke of, 173 — 

175, 182. 
Montague, Charles, 187. 
Moore, Sir John, 217. 
More, Sir Thomas, 117, 146. 
Mortimer, Sir Edmund, 89. 
Mortimer, Roger of, 74 — 76. 
Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 100. 
Mutiny Act, 189. 



N. 



Napier, Sir Charles, 239. 
Naseby, battle of, 155. 
National Debt, 187, 204, 219. 
Navarino, battle of, 230. 
Navarrete, battle of, 79. 
NTson, Horatio, Lord, 214 — 216. 
Nevill's Cross, battle of, 77. 
New Forest, the, 38, 41. 



INDEX. 



249 



Newton Butler, battle of, 185. 
Newton, Isaac, 182, 187, 206. 
Nile, battle of the, 215. 
Nithisdale, Earl of, 197. 
Nonconformists, 133, 168. 
Nonjurors, 184. 

Norfolk, John Howard, Duke of, 108. 
Norfolk, Roger Bigod, Earl of, 70. 
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, Duke of, 

118, 120. 
Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of, 

84. 
Normans, 15, 23, 27, 30 ; build castles 

and churches, 31. 
Northampton, battle of, 99. 
Northumberland, kingdom of, 6, 9 ; 

Danes in, 14 ; earldom of, 21. 
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 1st 

Earl of, 85, 89, 90. 
Northumberland, Henry Percy, 4th 

Earl of, 108. 
Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke 

of, 124 — 127. 
Northumberland, Thomas Percy, 7th 

Earl of, 134. 
North-west passage, search for the, 

136, 145, 241. 



O. 

Oates, Titus, 172. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 231. 

Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, 18. 

Odo, Bishop • f Bayenx, 31, 36, 39. 

Offa, King of the Mercians, 11, 14. 

Ormond, Duke of, 194, 196- 

Ormond, James Butler, Marquess of, 

159- 
Oswald, King of the Northumbrians, 

10. 
Oudenarde, battle of, 193. 
Outram, Sir James, 240. 
Oxford, Provisions of, 62. 
Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of, 194 

— 196. 



P. 



Painting, 227. 

Papists, see Roman Catholics. 

Paris, Treaty of, 211. 

Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 132, 145. 

Parliament, 7, 33 ; brought by Earl 
Simon and Edward I. into its present 
form, 63, 70 ; Roman Catholics shut 
out from, 135, 172, 230 ; money not 
to be levied without grant of, 189, 



nor a standing army kept unless by 
its consent, 189; necessity oi fre- 
quent parliaments, 189 ; oath of 
abjuration imposed on members, 
190 , one parliament for England 
and Scotland, 193, and for Ireland, 
220 ; duration oi parliaments, 198 ; 
Roman Catholics admitted to, 231; 
parliamentary reform, 232-234, 
237, 241 ; Jews admitted to House 
of Commons, 241 ; Parliament de- 
poses Edward II., 74; the Good 
Parliament, 79; Parliament of 1554 
reconciled with Rome, 129; the 
Adtlled Parliament, 143; Parliament 
of 1628, 150 ; the Long Parliament, 
152— 161, 164—167; the Little 
Parliament, 162; Parliaments of the 
Protectorate, 162, 163 ; Convention 
Parliament of 1660, 165, 167 ; Par- 
liament of 1661, 168 ; Parliament of 
1685, 175, 176 ; Convention Parlia- 
ment of 1689, 180 ; first Reformed 
Parliament, 234. 

Paterson, 187. 

Patrick, St., converts the Irish, 12. 

Paulinus, Bishop, 9. 

Pedro or Peter the Cruel, King of 
Castile, 78. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 231, 233, 237. 

Pembroke, Richard Clare, Earl of 
•(Stron^bow), 52. 

Pembroke, William, Earl of, 61. 

Penda, King of the Mercians, 10. 

Peninsular War, 217. 

Percy, Sir Hemy, called Hotspur, 89. 

Philip, King oi Spain, 128 — 131, 135 

_ — I 37- 

Philip Augustus, King of France, 
5i, 53—57- 

Philip of Valois, King of France, 
76. 

Philippa of Hainault, Queen (wife of 
Edward III.), 77, 79. 

Picts, 4, 5. 

Pilgrimage of Grace, 119. 

Pinkie, battle of, 123. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 200, 
203, 211, 212. 

Pitt, William, 213, 216, 230, 232. 

Plassy, battle of, 204. 

Poitiers, battle of, 78. 

Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, 119, 129, 
131. 

Poor Laws reformed, 234. 

Popish Plot, 172, 206. 

Praemunire, Statute of, 85. 

Presbyterians, 154, 155, 165, 172. 

Press, censorship of, 189. 



25° 



INDEX. 



Preston, battle of, 156 ; Jacobites de- 
feated at, 197. 

Pretender, the Old (James Francis 
Edward Stuart), 177 — 179, 188, 194, 
197. 

Pretender, the Young (Charles Edward 
Stuart), 198, 201, 202. 

Printing, 108, 109. 

Protestants, 118 ; persecution of, 
129 ; extreme Protestants called 
Puritans, 132 ; foreign Protestants 
succoured by Elizabeth, 13^, 135 ; 
by Cromwell, 163 ; French Pro- 
testants, 183 ; Protestants in Ireland, 
185 ; Protestant succession settled, 
190 ; Protestant riots, 213. 

Punjaub annexed, 239. 

Puritans, 132, 133, 135, 141, 144, 151, 
153, 154, 161, 164, 166, 181. 

Purveyance and pre-emption, preroga- 
tive of, 59, 167. 

Pym, John, 152. 



Riot Act, iq6. 

Rivers, Anthony Wydevile, Earl, 105 
109. 

Robert, Duke of Normandy (son of 
William I.), 38—41,43. 

Roderick, King of Connaught, 52. 

Rodney, Admiral Sir George, 212. 

Rolf, Rollo, or Rou, Duke'of the Nor- 
mans, is. 

Roman Catholics, 118, 132, 134, 137, 
141, 142, 168, 172, 175, 186, 189, 230. 

Romans, r — 5. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 223. 

Roses, Wars of the, 99. 

Royal Marriage Act, 220. 

Royal Society founded, 182. 

Rupert, Prince, 153, 154, 170. 

Russell, Admiral, 178, i36. 

Russell. William, Lord, beheaded, 173. 

Rye-house Plot, 173. 

Ryswick, Peace of/187, 188. 



Quakers, or Friends, 164, 223. 
Quebec, taking'of, 203. 



R. 

Ralegh, Sir Walter, 136, 141—143, 
147. 

Ralf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, 
32, 40. 

R undies, battle of, 192. 

Reform Hill of 1832, 233 ; of 1867, 241. 

Renard, Simon, 128, 129. 

Revolution of 1688, 180. 

Richard I., King (son of Henry II.), 
51 ; reign, 53 ; death, 55 ; le- 
gendary fame, ib. 

Richard II., King, reign, 81; depo- 
sition, 85 ; uncertain death, 88 ; 
burial, 88, 92. 

Richard III., King (Duke of Glou- 
cester), 103 — 105 ; reign, 106 ; killed 
at Bosworth, 108. 

Richard, King of the Romans (Earl of 
Cornwall), 60, 63. 

Richm >nd, Henry Tudor, Earl of, 
see Henry VII. 

Ridley, Niciioias, Bishop of London, 
126, 130. 

Right, Declaration of, 180, 189, 206. 

Right, Petition of, 150. 

Rights, Bill of, 189. 



Sacheverel, Dr., 193. 

Saint Albans, battles of, 99, 100. 

Saint Paul's, cathedral church of, 
founded, 9 ; rebuilding begun by 
Bishop Maurice, 31 ; cloister pulled 
down, 124 ; burned and rebuilt, 

170, 183 ; Thornhill's paintings in, 
227. 

Salisbury, Margaret, Countess of, 120. 

Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 177, 184. 

Sarsfield, Patrick, 186. 

Saxons, 5, n. 

Sees, 1. 

Scutage, 52, 58, 65. 

Sebastopol, taking of, 239. 

Sedgemoor, battle of, 174. 

Septennial Act, 198. 

Seringapatam, storming of, 215. 

Settlement, Act of, 190. 

Seven Bishops, the, 177, 184, 209. 

Seven Years' War, 202, 204. 

Severus, Emperor, 4. 

Seymour, Thomas, Lord, of Sudeley, 
123. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of (Lord Ashley), 

171, 182, 206. 
Ship money, 151, 152. 
Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 193. 
Shrewsbury, battle of, 89. 
Shrewsbury, Earl and Duke of, 178, 

*95- 
Sidney, Algernon, beheaded, 173 



INDEX. 



251 



Sidney, Sir Philip, 136, 147. 

Sikh wars, 239. 

Simnel, Lambert, 112. 

Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, 

63-65, 70. 
Sind, conquest of, 238. 
Siward, Earl, 27. 
Six Articles, Act of the, 120, 123. 
Slavery, 7 ; dies out, 33 ; cannot exist 

in England, 223; Act for bolition 

of, 234. 
Slave-trade, 28 ; negro-slave trade, 

136 ; abolished, 223, 234. 
Smith, Sir Sidney, 215. 
Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of, 

99. 
Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of 

(Earl of Hertford), 121 — 125. * 
Sophia, Princess, Electress of Han- 
over, 190, 194. 
South-sea .Scheme, 197. 
Spanish Succession, 188 ; War of the, 

192, -<o8. 
Spenser, Henry, Bishop of Norwich, 

83- 
Spurs, battle of the, 115. 
Sfamfordbridge, battle of, 25. 
Standard, battle of the, 47. 
Stanley, Lord, 108. 
Stanley, Sir William, beheaded, 112. 
Star Chamber, 151, 152. 
Stephen, King, 46 — 48. 
Stephenson, George and Robert, 235. 
Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl 

of (Viscount Wentworth), 150, 152. 
Strathclyde, Welsh of, submit to 

Edward the Elder, 15 ; grant of, to 

Malcolm, 17. 
Strongbow (Earl of Pembroke), 52. 
Stuart, Arabella, 141. 
Suetonius Paulinus, 2. 
Suffolk, Henry Grey, Duke of, 125, 

128. 
Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, 

,, 97 ' 98 - 

Supremacy, Act of, 132, 133. 

Suraj-ad dowla, Nabob of Bengal, 204. 

Suirey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 121, 

147. 

Surrey, John Warren, Earl of, 69. 

Surrey. Thomas Howard, Earl of, 115. 

Swegen or Swend Forkbeard, King, 



T. 



Talavera, battle of, 217. 
Talbot, Lord (Earl of Shrewsbury), 
96,97- 



Tallages, 34, 62. 

Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land, 221. 

Templars, Knights, Order of the, sup- 
pressed, 75. 

Test Act, 168, 231. 

Tewkesbury, battle of 103. 

Thomas, St., Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 49 — 51, 87, 119. 

Tippoo Sahib, 215, 220, 221. 

Toleration Act, 189. 

Toulouse, battle of, 218. 

Towton, battle of, 101. 

Trafalgar, battle of, 216. 

Treasons, Statute of, 80 ; Act for re- 
gulating trials in cases of, 190. 

Triennial Act, 198. 

Tromp, Martin, 160, 161. 

Troyes, Treaty of, 94. 

Tudor, Owen, 95, 107. 

Tyrconnel, O'Donnel, Earl of, 144. 

Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of, 
176, 185. 

Tyrone, O'Neill, Earl of, 138, 139, 
144. 



U. 



Uniformky, Acts of, 126, 132, 168. 

Union with Scotland, 193 ; with Ire- 
land, 220 ; Union Jack, 144, 193, 
220. 

Utrecht, Peace of, 194. 



V. 

Victoria, Queen, 236. 
Villainage, 33, 81—83. 
Vimiera, battle of, 217. 



W. 



Wakefield, battle of, 100. 

Wales, 5; Flemish settlement in, 44; 

conquered and annexed by Edward 

I, 67 ; revolt under Glendower, 89; 

incorporated with England, 122 

Royalist risings in, 156. 
Wales, Prince of, 65, 67. 
Wallace, William, 69. 
Walls built by the Romans in Britain, 

3—5- 
Walpole, Robert, Earl of Orford, 198-1 

200. 
Walsingham, Sir Francis, 132, 135. 
Waltheof, Earl, 27, 36, 37. 
Waibeck, Perkin, 11 a, 113. 



252 



INDEX. 



Warwick, Edward, Earl of, in, 113. 
Warwick, Richard Neville, Earl of, 

100, 102, 103. 
Waterloo, battle of, 218. 
Wat Tyler, 82. 
Watt, James, 222. 
Wedgwood, Josiah, 222. 
Wedmore, Peace of, 14. 
Weliesley, Marquess, 217, 221. 
Wellington, Arthur Weliesley, Duke 

of, 217, 218, 231, 233, 238. 
Welsh, 1, 5, 7 ; submit to Egbert, 

n ; Welsh of Strathclyde submit 

to Edward the Elder, 15; overthrown 

at Brunanburh, 16 ; Welsh marches, 

44 ; conquered by Edward I., 67 ; 

revolt under Gh ndower, 89. 
Wesley, John and Charles, 205, 
Wessex, kingdom of, 6, 11 ; earldom 

of", ai. 
Westminster, 24, 28, 68, 95, 102, 105, 

183. . 
Westminster Hall, 42, 157, 235. 
Westmoreland, Charles Neville, Earl 

of, 134- 
Whitefield, George, 205. 
Whittington, Richard, 95. 
Wilkes, John, 211, 224. 
William I., the Conqueror, King 

(William, Duke of Normandy), 

24—26, 28, 31-33, 44, 50; reign, 

35 ; death, 38. 
William II., King, 28, 38; reign, 39; 

death, 42. 



William III., King (Prince of Orange- 
Nassau), 177—180, 183; reign, 184; 
death, 188. 

Wiliiam IV., King (Duke of Clarence), 
231; reign, 232 ; death, 234. 

William the Lion, King of Scots, 51. 

William, son of Henry I , 44. 

William of St. Carileph, Bishop of 
Durham, 32. 

Witenagemot, or Witan, 7, 8, 33. 

Wolfe, General, 203. 

Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 116, 117. 

Worcester, battle of, 159 

Wulfstan, St., Bishop of Worcester, 
28. 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 128. 

Wycliffe, John, 81. 

Wykeham, William of, Bishop of Win- 
chester, 80. 



York, Edmund of Langley, Duke of, 
80, 84. 

York, Edward Plantagenet, Duke of, 
see Edward IV. 

York, James, Duke of, see James II. 

York, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of, 
99, 100. 

York, Richard, Duke of (son of Ed- 
ward IV.), 104-107, 1 12 

York, Henry Benedict Stuart, Car* 
dinal, 202. 



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